Halo 3: The Dawn of a New Era
by Agementus
Summary: The work of a brilliant young scientist helps improve humanity's outlook for survial and the great galactic war sees the formation of new alliances. Ancient truths are revealed and hopes for peace rest on the eradication of the flood.
1. The Beginning After the End

_**The Dawn of a New Era**_

(Disclaimer: This story is 100 original. Any ideas similar to that in another story are purely coincidental. I take no ownership to any people, places, and/or things based on the original Halo series besides the eventual use of my own creations.)

The Beginning after the End

John-117 felt the slight tug of the Forerunner craft exit the slip space jump, but he hadn't the slightest idea where he was. To his surprise, the crackle of radio communications slipped into this comm. set.

Focusing on the chatter, his suit amplified a message between a tactician and Admiral Hood. They were aiming their weapons at the craft he was on.

Before the firing sequence could be initiated, however, John identified his presence on the forerunner ship.

"Master Chief, you mind telling me what you're doing on that ship?" asked a very surprised but pleased Admiral Hood.

John responded concisely and to the point, "Sir, finishing this fight." He let out a sigh of relief knowing that now he wouldn't have to worry about being blown to bits by the orbiting defense stations. It was also re-affirming to hear the admiral's voice and discover that Earth hadn't fallen to the Covenant armada.

"Master Chief, do you happen to have something in mind?" inquired Hood. "If you haven't already happened to notice, the Covenant has brought in reinforcements, and lots of them. It appears that Truth's fleet has merged with the remains of Regret's."

John quickly told Admiral Hood of his recent events. He recapped the journey on _In Amber Clad_ to another halo, the discovery of High Charity, the death of two prophets, the meeting with Gravemind, and ultimately to his current position, finishing by saying that the Prophet of Truth was on this ship as well. "Sir, permission to find Truth and take him down."

"Granted Master Chief. Be careful," replied Hood. A smile appeared on his face after hearing the news. Yes, it was unfortunate that the rest of Truth's fleet had arrived at Earth and that they potentially had the firepower to punch through the orbital defense grid, but with Master Chief back in the fight, things seemed to turn for the better. With his spirits reinvigorated, Admiral Hood turned his attention back towards his command post. There were a couple gigantic Covenant Flag Ships that needed to meet his MAC cannons. If things went well, he also had a little surprise to show them.

Realizing that what was done was done, Master Chief took his focus off his com-link and took another look at his surroundings. The expansive white walls seemed to glow on their own and the room was relatively empty. John noticed numerous crates which seemed to hold communications equipment, but was otherwise nearly empty. The walls were blank except for the entry hatch behind him and a large white door behind him.

_Truth must have packed in a hurry once the flood came after him. Maybe that'll mean that no one knows I'm here._

Focusing on his next action, he instinctively checked his ammo belt. John angrily muttered some profanity under his breath when he realized that he was out of battle rifle ammo and his current cartridge had enough ammo left for two quick bursts.

_Two headshots and then things get tricky_ John said to himself.

The Chief let out a deep sigh and devised his next move.

_Of all the times I had to be stuck without Cortana … _

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The control room on the Delta Halo glowed with a pale white light as the images of the numerous other halos flickered above the display module. After the firing sequence was aborted, the whole system went on standby for remote activation.

The bodies of several maimed elites lay scattered about and a few dead brutes were among them hosting severe plasma burns. Near the middle of the platform lay the distinctive body of Tautarus. His whiter fur was singed black in many places and bullet holes riddled his body. His right leg was contorted in a painful angle after the Arbiter managed to detonate a frag grenade near his body while his shields were down. Thick purple blood oozed onto the floor and flowed near the feet of numerous elites and two humans.

Things didn't seem to make sense. 343 Guilty Spark answered the Arbitor's question by saying that the Ark was located somewhere on Earth. Sergeant Johnson couldn't put the pieces together though. How could it be possible that such a thing remained undiscovered through the centuries of Human existence? Certainly someone would have stumbled upon it.

The human sergeant asked the Oracle if it was sure Earth was where the Ark was located.

The Oracle responded affirmatively, but with a slightly annoyed and sarcastic tone. Johnson took an aggressive step towards it angry at its lack of discipline and respect.

"Easy, Johnson," Miranda Keyes said smoothly. "The last thing we want to do is damage it"

"Yes, 'mam," complied Johnson quietly without removing his angry glare from the hovering machine.

An elite stood next to the humans wearing a very ceremonious suit of body armor. The Arbiter gazed towards the ground as his brain processed this enormous wealth of information. So much had happened so suddenly. The meeting with the demon and the parasite leader, the betrayal of the prophets, the near activation of the ring, and the proof that the 'great journey' was a lie all swam in his mind.

_So is that why the prophets declared the humans to be a bane of the Covenant. They would have been able to open our eyes to this great lie. Not only have we been betrayed, but now we must accept that these humans, the ones we swore to exterminate, must be our allies if we wish to win this fight…._

"Mr. Arbiter, you there?" Johnson asked. He gave the elite a slight nudge on the side in an attempt to get his attention.

The Arbiter snapped back to attention and slowly looked towards the two humans and then towards his brethren. Focusing on the dozen or so elites around him, the Arbiter gave his opinion with strength and authority. "We should leave this place, regroup what ever forces we have, and travel to Earth to prevent Truth from completing his goal."

The elites all nodded in agreement. Johnson and Commander Keyes both looked at each other.

It was difficult for anyone in the group to become adjusted to the new circumstances. Now the elites and their allies were being hunted down and destroyed by the remains of the Covenant. It was a fate that humanity knew well. However, all of the years of war, death, and destruction made it difficult for the humans and elites to reconcile with each other. A great deal of time would be needed and the Arbiter was sure that the humans would demand a price in blood to be repaid for there to be peace between them.

"Do you humans agree with this current course of action?" the Arbiter inquired turning to face Miranda Keyes and Sergeant Johnson.

Taken back by the thought of being asked of her opinion by, of all things, an elite, Commander Keyes replied after a moment, "Sounds like one of the few options we have. We just ask that we can stop at one place while we're on the way and pick up Maste …err… a friend."

Miranda Keyes knew better than to mention the 'demon' to the elites surrounding them least they take the idea the wrong way. However, mankind needed the Chief back if they were to win this war and have a chance for survival.

"Ah yes, him," the Arbiter said quietly. In his mind, there was no question as to who the human was referring to. He nodded with his head that they should leave now. "The parasite leader sent him to High Charity in hopes of finding the key needed to begin the prophets' great journey."

The mentioning of the great journey caused the elites around him to wince.

As they started to walk away, Johnson took a look over his shoulder and noticed 343 Guilty Spark hovering in the air around the control panel. Although he despised the machine with a passion, he sighed and said, "Looks like you'll probably want to come with us too, Tinkerbelle."

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Author's Notes: This is the beginning of hopefully a long and enjoyable story. Please read, enjoy, and drop a review if you care to do so. Thanks for reading!


	2. The Tide Begins to Turn

The Tide Begins to Turn

Lieutenant Adam Mitchell continued to pour his mind over the complicated and tedious computer equipment in his small and confined office quarters in the Cairo. Sweat slowly ran down his brow and his short, curly, brown hair lay matted upon his forehead from wearing his lucky green sports cap. He quickly punched in commands on the keyboard and constantly noted the data readings from the equipment surrounding him. His left leg twitched up and down, a nervous habit he developed back in his teenage years. Today was the day he spent so many years planning for. As he took a moment to scratch his rough and unshaven chin, he pondered one question over and over again. _Will this work?_

Bearing advanced degrees, PhD's and honorary symbols of recognition in physics and chemical engineering from the most prestigious universities around the world, this officer proved over and over that he was no dummy. In fact, and a ripe age of 45, Lt. Mitchell was leading the way in the research of plasma technology. A man of unsurpassed brilliance, he was compared to the few great minds of humanity.

He had spent countless years tinkering with captured covenant plasma pistils and plasma rifles. It's best to say that his sacrifice and dedication to the project yielded some very impressive results; results so significant, that they rivaled the accomplishments of the SPARTAN II project under the famous Dr. Halsey.

ONI was quite impressed with his progress when they studied his early tests nearly twenty years ago. It was probably why they went as far as giving him a personal state-of-the-art research facility deep within one of the major facilities in Sydney, Australia. With section 3 security access, Adam felt privileged that the military respected his research and thought of it as an asset to the cause.

Sitting back in his chair, he leaned back and lost himself for a moment in the memories of his past. It took him back many, many years to when he first became interested in the project.

It was only a few weeks after he had completed his final PhD in chemical engineering with a widely renown thesis on plasma technology that combined with his previous work on physics. At a young age of twenty, Adam had already learned as much about the subject as the hardened scientists working for ONI. His work took the special interest of one man, Colonel James Ackerson.

Mr. Mitchell, had heard stories about Colonel Ackerson. He was the man that tried to compete against Dr. Halsey's SPARTAN II project without success. Some of the tabloids that managed to get information from the secretive ONI reported about his jealous fits and apparent animosity towards the Spartans. He assumed that Ackerson's failure to procure results similar to Dr. Halsey's resulted in a dramatic loss of funding for his own projects and was one of the prime reasons for his hate of the SPARTAN II project.

Adam could see in the cold, blue eyes of Col. Ackerson when he arrived for an interview, that the man was very interested in his talents. He figured that Ackerson would use him in an attempt to bring the fame and recown that he always wanted, even though at the time, the SPARTAN II project had only brought in its first real successes. These petty disputes didn't bother him though. All he wanted was a facility to continue his research and do his part to bring humanity victory over the Covenant.

With a cold grin, Ackerson took Adam throughout the facility, down many elevators, finally arriving at one of the most impressive laboratories he had ever seen.

"This will be your station, kid. And here's your I.D. badge. I strongly recommend you don't lose it," Ackerson said roughly handing the young man his I.D. card. "Do well, and you'll find glory. If you fail … just don't fail. Bad things happen to failures around here, Lieutenant."

With that, Ackerson turned away and marched off leaving a very surprised and slightly scared researcher in front of the door. Looking down at his I.D. card, Adam noticed that his involvement in the research led him to be promoted to a Lieutenant. _At least some good has happened so far… _

Adam quickly came over the initial shock, however, and began his research.

Through numerous experiments and countless streams of data, it was observed that magnetic generators were responsible for directing and containing the plasma burst in the weaponry he tested. But how was that plasma energy created? Lt. Mitchell discovered that an unknown element was used to create a kind of perpetual fusion reaction inside of the weapon. This fusion reaction would be contained by the magnetic field which in turn, gathered its energy from the fusion reaction which had three functions, one of which was behaving as a battery. This almost instantaneous process made the weapon safe and relatively stable. The most important task of the fusion core involved superheating a special ceramic to supercritical temperatures turning it in to a mass of plasma. The surplus energy from the fusion reaction allowed it to carry its third task, to shape the plasma into a bolt via electromagnetic energy which could then be discharged from the weapon.

While Lt. Mitchell couldn't get his hands on large quantities of the specific Covenant fuel, he could use hydrogen to fuel the fusion reaction instead. A unique man-made ceramic happened to make a very nasty compound of plasma which, in fact, was observed to exceed the power and effectiveness of the Covenant plasma by ten-fold in preliminary tests. By specifically altering the mechanics of the Cairo, this defense platform was capable of shooting out high energy plasma at near light speeds through a smaller, concealed MAC cannon under its belly.

Snapping back to reality, Adam took a deep breath and swallowed a large mouthful of coffee in the mug resting on a little platform to his left. Although he was fully awake and alert, his conscience told him that a little caffeine was in order. It had been over forty eight hours since he had last gotten a good nights rest. There were rumors of a possible Covenant attack on Earth and Lt. Mitchell wasted no time in completing the final preparations for his weapon. When his fears were confirmed and Regret's fleet arrived, he continued to pour his heart and soul into the equipment in an attempt to make false Murphy's Law.

"What can go wrong won't go wrong, dammit!" the Lieutenant cried out loud.

One of Adam's project helpers opened the security door in the back of the room. His name was Trevor and he had worked with Adam for nearly 10 years giving invaluable assistance to the brilliant Lieutenant.

"Mr. Mitchell, sir, the secondary fusion reactor is online and has begun charging the MACK gun."

Lt. Mitchell gave a small grin. Of all things he loved the most, they were the little phrases his co-researchers had come up with. In the debate for a name, Trevor asked to call it a MACK gun, a Magnetically Accelerated Covenant Killer gun. The name stuck.

"Great work kiddo. If all goes well, we'll see this baby tear the covies a new one sooner than they can say, 'Aw crap'."

Anxious and eager to test out the pinnacle of 25 years worth of work, Lieutenant Mitchell connected with the man in charge. "Admiral Hood, the reactor is at 75 energy. The ceramic composite is 30 critical and the cannon is half way charged. We'll be ready to fire in 10 minutes."

"Good work Lieutenant. Begin targeting procedure on the Flagship class Covenant cruiser nearest to our location. Fire on my command," replied Hood in a calm and controlled tone. "Soon, we'll be able to give the Covenant a taste of their own hell. Hood out."

Adam Mitchell's left leg began to twitch even more than normal.

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Spartan-117 quietly moved towards the doorway and listened carefully for any movement on the other side. Crouching silently, he concluded that there definitely wasn't a guard by the door and that it appeared there were no patrols in the vicinity.

Activating the door controls, John opened the entrance way leading into a hallway which had a shocking architectural resemblance to that of the Covenant's own ships. The only real difference was that the gentle glow in the walls was consistent with what he noticed in the storage chamber.

"I've heard that the Covenant based some of their technology on Forerunner designs, but this is just ridiculous," the Chief muttered to himself. He paused, half expecting Cortana to butt in and respond with a whimsical comment and remind him to focus on the task ahead. However, Cortana remained on High Charity, prepared to detonate the fusion reactors on _In Amber Clad_ and the Chief missed her presence greatly.

Cortana was like a sister to the Chief. Her tactical brilliance had helped him overcome odds that he could not have surpassed by himself. The battle on Earth, defeating the whole assault team of Covenant forces on the scarab all at once, was proof of that alone. The fact was that he needed her in his great times of need, and if situations arouse which called for similar brilliance in tactics, the Chief nervously swallowed the thought of not getting out of it alive. However, decades of training and experience were not in vain, and John was quite confident in his own abilities.

Using his knowledge of Covenant battle cruisers and the dramatic similarities on this Forerunner ship, the Chief carefully pressed on towards where he thought the bridge would be.

After taking a few hallways to his left and walking up a gentle ramp, John was startled to see two heavily armed brutes guarding a doorway. John recognized the symbols above the door way the instant he glanced towards them. It was a prisoner chamber. The only question was, who is being held in it?

Thinking quietly to himself, Master Chief devised a plan. It would make no sense to rashly charge up at the brutes with guns a-blazing. He remembered that he only had two bursts of battle rifle ammo left. "How ironic," he thought to himself. "Two shots, two brutes. If only Johnson was here to see this." John smiled gently. Ever sense the sergeant and the Spartan had been working together, they had been in a kind of friendly competition to see who could perform the best stunts. He was sure that if this worked, Johnson would have a fit.

Positioning himself carefully on the ramp as to only show the tip of his BR55 assault rifle, the Chief carefully used his scope to focus the crosshairs right on the eye of the nearest brute.

_Wait for it, wait for it …_

The ship took a sharp jolt as if it was avoiding something. The brutes were knocked off balance and John took this as the opportunity he was waiting for. He squeezed the trigger keeping his aim steady.

Three bullets rushed out of the rifle and raced through the air towards the brute. The first bullet missed its mark and hit the brute in the bottom rim of its helmet creating a sharp ping of metal striking metal. The other two bullets, however, hit their mark. The bullets obliterated the brute's right eye as they continued on their path through a soft spot in the creature's thick skull. Entering the brain and punching through the back of the Brute's skull, the two bullets took the time to make a mess of anything near them. Its brain was transformed into puréed meatloaf in mere seconds. The brute's body stiffened, a weak moan escaped from its mouth, and then it collapsed as its nervous system shut down.

The second brute, startled by the turbulence of the forerunner craft, was shocked even more to hear the weapons fire. Looking over its left shoulder to see its mate drop like a sack of potatoes, the brute's instinctive rage kicked in. Its pulse raced, its mouth began to salivate thick, white foam, and it dropped its weapons, charging on all fours towards where the gun shot sounded.

The Chief wasted no time in turning his scope towards the charging brute. Aiming carefully to the right of the brute's forward shoulder, he unleashed his last burst of ammo. Whipping past its heavily armored shoulder plate, the three bullets made contact with the far side of the brute's unprotected neck piercing its muscular walls and cutting into its jugular veins. In its rage, however, the brute wasn't phased by the wound. Unfortunately, it failed to notice the dark purple and blue blood squirting out of its neck like water from a pressurized hose.

John stood up and easily side stepped the charge of the rampaging brute which let out a mighty roar of outrage. Stopping its momentum, the brute turned to face the Spartan. It prepared for another charge, but weakness seemed to overcome its body. Its eyes became dark, and before the life left its body, it let out a pathetic gargling sound, finally collapsing to the ground.

The Spartan took a moment to search the bodies of the brutes. He walked away with a brute plasma rifle, a brute shot containing twelve grenades of ammo, and six plasma grenades. Securing the weapons and grasping the brute shot, the Chief carefully opened the door containing the prisoner chamber and walked in ready to face whatever was on the other side.

Adjusting his eyes to the dimmer light, Master Chief gazed at a nearly empty room. Then something caught his eye. An active cell to his far left held six elites, a dozen grunts, and two hunters prisoner. Upon noticing the demon standing in front of them, they instantly stopped what they were doing and stared at him. The grunts looked on with terror while the rest looked completely shocked.

One grunt cried, "It demon, run away!" and proceeded to hide behind a hunter timidly peaking out around the creature's huge shield.

The Chief hesitated for a moment and then proceeded with his original thought. He aimed the brute shot at the shield module and fired. The explosion destroyed the shield generator and the light blue, yet transparent shield covering the cell disappeared. The two hunters raced out of the cell preparing to swat John like a fly, but the command of one Elite caused them to halt their charge.

"Hold it! Lekgolo, halt!" cried an elite in bright gold armor. "Why do you release us from this prison, demon?"

Looking carefully at the two hunters and then facing the elite, John replied, "Look, Truth is attacking my people and if I don't stop them, he'll kill them all. If he destroys Earth, humanity is gone, and he'll destroy your planets next. Help me protect my planet so that yours will be safe, too."

The golden elite clapped his mandibles together. "I was mistaken to think of you as only a cold blooded killer, demon. You obviously care for your brothers and sisters as I care for mine, but make no mistake. This is a temporary truce and nothing more. After we kill the prophet, you will not be welcome among us." Turning his head towards the door, the elite continued saying, "I used to captain this ship, I know it well. Follow me to the bridge." He nodded towards the rest of his comrades and then towards John. "Come, demon. We shall give the prophet what he disserves."

Leaving the chamber in a slow trot, John and the Covenant force continued on down the hallway towards the bridge holding the Prophet of Truth. They walked unopposed through the rest of the ship until they reached the bridge of the forerunner ship. It surprised the Chief that it wasn't guarded, but then again, he figured that Truth had his mind preoccupied with the Ark and probably assumed no threats made it onto the ship.

John gave a nod to the golden Elite who in turn, signaled that the two hunters follow the demon in. The rest would follow behind and provide support. Taking a deep breath, John slammed his fist on the door panel and rushed inside.

He came to a halt the second he entered the room. There were about ten brutes at various command stations while Truth had his gaze fixed on a central viewing screen. He then turned towards the Chief and said, "Ah, the demon. I should have figured it was you when I was told the prisoners had escaped." Turning to the two hunters behind him Truth commanded, "Stay where you are scum, the human must watch as his planet's pathetic defenses fall to my fleet."

The hunters looked at each other and John gestured for them to not to attack just yet.

The display module showed the _Cairo_ and three other defense platforms that had come to replace the _Multa_ and the _Athens_. Against them were two of the biggest Covenant ships John had ever seen.

The Spartan had never been seen dumbstruck before, be he was too shocked to move. Inside his suit, his jaw hung half open and all he could think was, "Oh, shit."

"Watch, demon, as we destroy your Cairo, your Admiral Hood, and then move on to erase the rest of your filth from the galaxy. You'll be begging to me for mercy!" Truth exclaimed. "Give the order to fire on that defense platform, now!" The brute next to him obediently followed the order.

Suddenly, John noticed flashes of light coming from the three stations around the _Cairo_ and also from three other stations only a few thousand kilometers away. Hope flared in John's heart as he saw it happen. The MAC cannons had opened fire. The first two blasts to hit the targeted Flagship class Covenant Cruiser were absorbed by the shield but the other four impacted critical structures on the enemy ship causing numerous sub-explosions. The lights on the cruiser dimmed and went out indicating that the ship had been taken offline.

John's mind raced. _But why didn't the Cairo fire its gun!_

Before Truth had the opportunity to slam his fist down in rage, the bottom of the Cairo began to glow with a fierce red light. The intensity rapidly grew until the glow covered the entire station. Then, as suddenly as it came, the light disappeared and a bright red bolt raced through space at breath-taking speeds towards the second Flagship class Cruiser. The bolt slammed into the cruiser creating a fireball big enough to engulf both of the gigantic Covenant ships. When the explosion had dissipated, the only remains of the two great Covenant vessels were a few clouds of debris.

"Impossible!" Truth screamed. "This can not be!"

With an air of superiority in his voice, the Master Chief replied, "On the contraire, it looks like it'll be you begging for mercy instead."

The second he finished his sentence, John, the two hunters, and the rest of the exiled Covenant opened fire on Truth and his crew.

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**Authors Notes**: This is my first full bodied chapter. I've been thinking of the new human technology for quite a while and I hope that it's not too far-fetched to grasp. The following chapters will ideally be of similar length broken town into two or three (maybe only one) sub-sections of the plot line. Let me know if you think something like this is too long, too short, or just right. Thanks, and enjoy!


	3. Uncertainty and Surprises

Uncertainty and Surprises

Walking back the way it entered, the Arbiter led Johnson, Keyes, and its fellow elites back the way they had entered. The main chamber guarding the activation room was littered with dead brutes. Some had fallen to what appeared to be plasma burns, others were neatly cut apart from an energy sword, and the rest had their spines snapped in two. The room reeked of death and dirty brute fur. It was a ghastly sight, even for the hardened marine, Sergeant Johnson, as he cringed upon entering. "Ugh, it's even nastier in here than when I first came through. And I thought brutes smelled bad enough when they were alive."

Miranda edged over towards Johnson and whispered in his ear, "Are you telling me that the elite over there, that Arbiter, did this all on his own?"

The sergeant replied quietly, "Yes 'mam. I saw him cleaning up the last few brutes. He stuck that one over there with a plasma grenade and finished those two over there with what was left of his energy sword. Hell, judging by the way he fights, if that Arbiter's mom didn't drop him so many times down the ugly Covenant tree, he might have wound up looking like the Chief."

Keyes gave a very slight chuckle and an elite off to her side gazed down at her to see what the humans were talking about. Seeing that the elite was staring right at her, she hid the smile, cleared her throat, and turned her focus back towards where the Arbiter was taking them.

The far end of the chamber hosted a huge, elaborately decorated door. Two blue elites stood guard, one on each side, making sure that no enemy made it inside without a fight. Nodding towards the elites, the Arbiter signaled for them to open the door. Sparks flew through the opening as the doors quickly slid apart.

Keyes' eyes opened wide and she exclaimed, "What happened in here?" The room before them looked like a complete war zone. There was plasma scorching everywhere, almost like a Covenant cruiser had bombarded that one exact spot. Debris littered the entire floor and at the far end, part of the ceiling had caved in.

"I was meaning to tell you about that," Johnson said scratching the back of his neck. "You see …" but before he could continue, the Arbiter came over and finished his sentence. "This human climbed into a Scarab." Clapping his mandibles in what appeared to be the slightest chuckle, the elite continued, "It appears that he likes to blow things up."

Sergeant Johnson reached into his pocket for a cigar and smirked saying, "That's right, I know that the ladies like."

Miranda rolled her eyes and for that one moment, the tension seemed to lift off the group. However, it did not last very long. Waiting outside on the platform of the activation facility was a phantom. An elite in bright gold armor notified the Arbiter that their ride was here and he in turn whispered something in the messenger's ear. Sweet, fresh air engulfed the party as they walked outside. The big yellow ball of fire in space radiated warmth through the cloudless sky and illuminated the pristine environment around them. It was beautiful. Miranda couldn't remember seeing the water as blue on Earth as it was in front of them.

Standing up front with his back to the phantom, the Arbiter announced, "Everyone on the phantom, now! We will be going to our forward base and devising a detailed plan from there." Noticing the expressions on the human's faces, the Arbiter pointed to the horizon and said "There, the _Faithful Blessing_." In the distant sky, a Covenant cruiser lay stationary above the surface.

Loading up in the phantom, a blue elite roughly shoved Miranda under the gravity lift with the command, "Move it, human." Johnson caught the action in the corner of his eye; it was his natural duty as a UNSC marine to protect his superiors. He rushed over and angrily said, "Hey, ugly, that woman outranks you. Show the respect she deserves."

The Elite stood at its full height and walked up to Johnson. Its intimating stance would have caused panic in all but the toughest adversaries. Johnson just happened to be one of them. Standing straight in his stoic posture, the marine chomped on his cigar meeting the Elite eye to eye despite the rather large height difference.

"Now look, are you going to listen to what I just said or am I going to have to whoop your nasty alien behind?" Johnson asked threateningly. The elite let out a deep growl showing that he wasn't going to back out. Johnson cracked his knuckles as a reply. Before things got real ugly, however, the Arbiter stepped in.

"Ferrunee, don't you dare harm that human," it said. Turning its attention to Johnson he finished with, "And you, human, climb in."

With an icy stare, the sergeant looked at the Arbiter and said incredulously, "I have a rank, Mr. Arbiter, and I think I've earned being called by it." Snapping his attention back towards the phantom, he walked under the gravity lift was brought into the transport.

The Arbiter watched Johnson levitate into the craft and then looked back at Ferrunee. "They're tougher than they look aren't they? Remember brother, this war was the effect of the prophet's lies, the humans are not our enemies. Save your anger for when it is needed."

Ferrunee breathed deeply replying, "Arbiter, you are right. It was wrong of me to behave that way." With a nod of his head, the blue armored Elite walked over to the gravity life and was transported into the phantom transport. The Arbiter, rather than walking to the gravity lift, strode over to the doorway of the activation facility where the golden armored Elite was conversing with several red armored Elites. Joining the group, the Arbiter cleared his throat.

"Tell me, what is the news from High Charity?" it inquired.

Answering its question, the Elite Commander replied sadly, "Arbiter, we lasted as long as we could. Our efforts were in vain. The parasite had taken over the human ship and crashed it in the holy city, infesting it with its vile presence. We could not fight both the brutes and the Flood at the same time. I am sorry, but the city is lost. May our ancestors forgive us for this tragedy."

"Brother, how many Sangheili survived?" The Arbiter's heart was stricken with grief over the news.

"We evacuated with about five thousand total. If we fought any longer, we would have been over run just as the rest of our brothers were." The zealot hung his head in shame and sadness.

_Five thousand? There were millions of Sangheili on High Charity! This is tragic indeed. Now the parasite has an army unlike no other at its disposal. They must be stopped! _

There was a deafening silence among the Elites until the Arbiter finally broke it several moments later. "I did not realize things were this bad. Load onto the phantom now! I know a way we can cleanse our holy city from the parasite and bring honor to our ancestors."

Obeying its command, the rest of the Sangheili ran underneath the gravity lift on the phantom and were loaded onboard. All that remained on the platform of the activation facility besides the phantom was the lone body of the Arbiter, his ceremonial armor glistening in the sun's radiant rays. Clenching his right fist tightly around his de-activated energy sword, he slowly raised his head towards the crisp blue sky. Above him, far into the heavens, orbited High Charity. With the Covenant fleet guarding it, the city looked like a jewel in the sky, but alone and barren, the city symbolized a desecrated tomb of the dead.

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The unlucky Brutes to get hit by the incoming wave of plasma fire were knocked out of their command posts and writhed in agony from the severe burns. It only took a few moments for the air in the bridge to reek of the stench of burning flesh and fur. The remaining Brutes that evaded the first wave of fire grabbed any nearby weapon and returned fire.

John emptied his remaining two grenades in his brute shot on a Brute hurling plasma grenades at the two hunters. Not realizing that two high velocity projectiles were hurling at his face, the Brute had no idea what hit him. Both grenades impacted the Brute's center face propelling his body backwards into another defending brute. Glancing at his fallen comrade, he jumped back in shock noticing the bloody crater where the Brute's face should have been. Using the rightward hunter for cover, John quickly reloaded his brute shot with marine style efficiency. With the loaded weapon, the Spartan jumped into the open and shot at the remaining two Brutes.

Just as he stepped into the clear, two solid beams of energy slammed into the hunter which John had just stood behind. The sheer force of the blast from Truth's twin fuel rod cannons sent the hunter flying back against the wall with its sharp spines impaling an unfortunate elite also using it for cover. The hunter collapsed on the ground with the elite stuck in its back. Both were dead.

However, with unimaginable efficiency, John dispatched the remaining brutes which were now laying painfully, bleeding on the floor. All that stood between the Spartan and victory was the Prophet of Truth. Remembering how he dispatched Regret back on delta halo, the Chief prepared to lunge onto Truth's hovering carrier. Before he had an opportunity to take a step, however, the explosions of multiple brute shots sounded in the hallway behind him followed by a high pitched yell.

"They got elite! Run away!" one of the grunts cried. It wasted no time in dropping its plasma pistil running the opposite way down the hall.

John quickly looked over to the elite commander and said with haste and authority, "I'll take care of Truth, you guys go finish off the rest of those brutes!" Gesturing the rest of his team and the lone hunter into the hallway, they attacked the brutes. Plasma fire and explosions sounded in the hallway with a fuel rod gun firing periodically.

Turning his attention back to Truth, John saw a green light flash towards his face. During his early training back on Reach, he received numerous bodily augmentations. One of which involved the superconducting fabrication of his neural dendrites. This improvement of his nervous system enhanced his reflexes by nearly three hundred percent. He was able to easily dodge blows and kicks from enemies and could even evade incoming plasma blasts given about half a second of reaction time. This was no exception. Thanks to the nerve augmentation and a bit of sheer luck, John was able to duck just as the energy eradicated a section of ship bulk metal where his head was only a moment before.

"Demon, today is when you meet your oblivion!" threatened Truth. "I shall kill you yet!"

John picked up a plasma grenade from the fallen body of a nearby grunt and tossed it at Truth. The attraction of the shielding with that of the grenade's radiation caused them to stick together and the resulting explosion disabled the Truth's shields just long enough for the Spartan to jump onto the hovering craft.

Looking Truth eye to eye, John menacingly replied, "I don't think so." With a sharp punch to the forehead and the echoing of the cracking of bone, the Covenant prophet hunched forward; it was unconscious. John shorted the controls on Truth's pod to disable the weapons and shielding device allowing the prophet's body to be safely and easily accessed least it became conscious.

The door behind John opened and the elite commander walked in. They both stood in silence facing the front of the deck, watching the Prophet of Truth hovering motionlessly while its body lay slumped forwards with a trickle of bluish blood running down its right cheek. The serenity was disturbed, however, by a second great flare of light on the orbital defense platform, _Cairo_. The plasma bolt rocketed out and unleashed its fury on a cluster of five CSS-Class battle cruisers. The fireball consumed everything in its wake and nothing remained but molten debris.

"By the prophet, demon, what have your people created?" John turned his head towards the elite. Its brilliant gold armor was plastered with the blood of brutes and its face showed signs of exhaustion.

"I don't know, but I wouldn't want to be those brutes right now," answered John with an impressed tone to his voice.

The elite simply replied, "Agreed." Walking over and grabbing hold of the knocked out prophet's head he angrily commented, "His throat will run with blood for the sins he has committed."

Before the Spartan could respond, the voice of Admiral Hood entered in his headset. "Chief, how are things going in there."

John answered obediently, "Fine, sir! The objective has been completed. Truth is out cold and ready to be brought to justice."

Those words brought joy into the admiral's heart. "Great work, Chief! We're sending over two squads of ODSTs and an A.I. to gain complete control of the ship. We'll be docking the ship inside of the _Cairo _and go from there to UNSC headquarters back on Earth. Master Chief, guard the Covenant leader until our forces arrive."

"Yes, Sir," replied John. "Permission to speak, sir."

"Granted, what is it Chief?"

"Sir, there are other passengers on this ship. They helped in the capturing of Truth."

"That's ok, Chief, but I didn't expect there to be other marines on the forerunner craft."

"Sir, they're Covenant. They were prisoners on the ship and for their freedom, they helped secure the objective."

There was a short pause before Admiral Hood answered back. John glanced back towards the exiled members of the Covenant behind him. Talking amongst themselves, they stopped what they were doing and looked back at the Chief. John could feel the tension slowly rise. Finally, the Admiral answered. "Green light Chief, if they agree to cease hostilities, they will be allowed onto the defense platform. If what you said about their betrayal is true, then they will want to see Truth pay for his crimes just as much as we do."

The Spartan ended the conversation with an affirmative, "Sir." Turning around and walking back to the elite commander John calmly stated, "You will be allowed onboard the Cairo if you agree to give up your weapons and agree to a truce between our races. Expect to be treated with suspicion and surrounded by security, but the marines will not harm you unless provoked. What do you say?"

The golden clad elite carefully picked out his words and replied, "For all this time, we were mislead; we destroyed your worlds one by one. Our hands are covered with the blood of the innocent. I will never harm another human for the rest of my days and neither will my crew. You have our pledge of a truce, demon."

John gave a nod of approval and no sooner than the pact was made, the ship shook and shuddered. The ODSTs had arrived. Using specially designed craft mimicking the boarding ships used by the Covenant, the ODSTs carefully latched onto the forerunner ship and cut a circular hole through the hull.

The hail of an ODST rang in the Chief's headset. "Sir, we've boarded the ship and are heading towards your position. ETA thirty seconds. Martin, out."

The Spartan indicated to the exiled Covenant that it'd be a good idea to drop their weapons. Hesitating, the elites dropped theirs first and the grunts followed suit. The lone hunter looked to his sides and caught an approving glance from the elite commander. It hit a switch on the gun and the fading of the green glow on its arm indicated the fuel rod cannon was shutting down.

A brief silence filled the room as they waited for the ODSTs to enter. When they did enter the bridge, the first ones to enter halted in their tracks. One exclaimed at the Chief, "Holy shit, Sgt. Briggs said that you were fighting with the Covenant but I thought he was just being a jackass."

Instinctively knowing that this situation could get ugly fast, John ordered, "Do not fire, they have agreed to cease hostilities. How is the battle going out there?"

One of the ODSTs eagerly chimed in, "Sir, the _Cairo_ has a sweet ass gun! It wiped out their leadership and the rest of their fleet is doesn't know what the hell to do. We're going to win!"

After hearing the news, one of the blue armored elites turned to another and said, "I told you the Jiralhanae didn't know a thing about piloting."

The ODSTs moved onto the bridge and loaded up their A.I. "Caesar, can you get the schematics of the ship?" asked the commanding ODST.

A strong, masculine voice sounded through some hidden sound panel and said, "Yes, I have it. Setting coordinates towards the Cairo."

As the forerunner craft headed towards the Cairo, the crew onboard the bridge could see explosion after explosion as the MAC cannons obliterated the Covenant fleet ship by ship. The weapon under the _Cairo_ fired a third time destroying a group of four Covenant battle cruisers. An ODST on the bridge commented, "That weapon is a mother f'er…."

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Warning sirens raged throughout the _Sacred Endeavour_. As one of the few CSS-class battle cruisers left in the battle, the ship took on the role of trying to create a unified offensive. The brute in charge spat out order after order to his crew and frequently slammed his fists on the command equipment in rage. It didn't help that its poor use of its frustration had knocked out most of the communications equipment for the ship. The pace at which hails for help, tactical information, and support increased rapidly but the _Sacred Endeavour_ remained silent despite all attempts to establish connections. A volley of Archer missiles made contact with the hull of the ship causing it to shake violently.

One of the brutes sitting at the communications array turned to the commander and said with disgust, "The humans have completely disabled our communications systems. We're blind."

The commanding brute roared back, "Get that damned machine working!" The rapid pace of incoming hails, the warning sirens, and complaints from it crew finally tweaked the wrong nerve. It raised both fists sending them crashing down on its already damaged command display. The blow was powerful enough to destroy all of the sensitive instruments and through an unlucky twist of fate, the ship instantly went on lockdown. All non-critical systems were disabled, including shielding and weapons. Looking around in disbelief, the brute crew watched as human MAC cannons chewed through the final clusters of Covenant battle cruisers. With a terrified gasp, the navigation officer exclaimed, "Commander, look!"

The enraged commander had just enough time to see a red bolt race towards them. There was nothing any of them could do to protect themselves, however. The _Cairo's_ plasma shot punched right through the shieldless hull of the ship detonating by the last two active Covenant ships. An intense light unlike anything the brutes had seen before engulfed them. As their bodies disintegrated into dust, oblivion welcomed them all.

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Entering Earth's system, the enemy fleet looked nearly invincible. Combined with Truth's fleet, their combined force was greater than the fleet that attacked Reach. However, with the three hundred defense platforms and a whole fleet of heavy battle cruisers, humanity was ready for the fight. As the forerunner craft maneuvered around the shattered remains of hundreds of Covenant space craft, John could only look on at the rapidly shrinking Covenant fleet and think, _God, it feels good to win_.

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**Authors Notes**: Forgive me if you run into errors with the English. It's past 2 A.M and I frankly don't want to wait until morning to update (well … later on in the morning). The next chapter might face a slight delay as there is a 10 page research paper that needs to be looked at along with preparations for three tests. So please bear with me and I'll post the next chapter as soon as I can. Hope you enjoy this update – drop a review for any comments, concerns, or for any other adjective that begins with a 'c'


	4. Flood Control is Never a Bad Thing

Flood Control is Never a Bad Thing

A blue light shimmered above a holo pedestal inside the dead holy city of High Charity. With a slight crackle, the body of Cortana quickly began to take shape as she manipulated the image processors inside of the system. With a sleek, attractive body and a warm blue glow, her presence illuminated part of a large chamber nearly saturated with a dense green fog. She looked around curiously, her gaze not only being projected through her eyes on the holo pedestal, but also through her control of the security systems throughout the room.

The moment after _In Amber Clad _made contact with one of the upper towers inside the city, she had felt a new, powerful presence. Although she had never been inside High Charity's network grid, past experiences with Covenant computer systems proved that their A.I.s were nothing compared to herself and the others programmed by the UNSC. Although mankind may have been outgunned by sheer brute force, the Covenant fell far behind in their use of artificial intelligence. But perhaps that was because the prophets wished for nothing to be created which posed as a threat to their own egotistical superiority.

After spending a brief period of time setting up firewalls to augment her control of the city's computer grid, she took a moment to search again at the source of the mysterious pushes and pulls that she felt on her very being. The conclusion came as suddenly as the first moment she felt the tug; no, this definitely isn't a Covenant program, but what is it?

The source of the unknown force seemed to emanate from sources all over the ship. However, after carefully analyzing the foreign sources within the data streams, she found one location standing out from the rest. It was a docking bay containing a sole surviving cruiser capable of making a slip space jump.

_Whatever this thing is, it seems to be trying real hard to distract my attention from where it has entered the city's network. Unlucky for it, I'm not that easily fooled._

As Cortana eyed the chamber, the features of the docking bay began to stand out. In the middle lay the ominous outline of a small yet powerful Covenant Cruiser identified as the _Last Remembrance_. Although the logs detailed the naming of the ship to that of an old elite crew which was almost completely eradicated during the Taming of the Hunters, Cortana couldn't help but to smirk at the irony of the name in light of the present situation. This ship was all that was left of the Covenant presence on the dead city.

Fortunately for the firewalls she had installed in the network only minutes before, Cortana felt the warning as a surge of power rushed towards her. If caught unawares, she would have at best been paralyzed under the force of the blow if not completely destroyed. With only a moment to react, she was able to disappear back into the vast network and return to another holo module on the other side of the docking bay. Frantically trying to identify the source, a quick and sudden jolt shook through her and a thick voice echoed through her body.

"You have come to this place with the one of nerve and machine, but while he was able to escape, you will not be as fortunate. The key has not turned and I am still able to fulfill my vengeance on the galaxy. Just as I have suffered for millennia, now will be your turn to join me in the darkness that awaits you."

Cortana felt her strength leave her as invisible hands began to grab her from every possible angle, drawing her down, down into a blackness which she had never before seen. Her struggles were in vain and her essence sank deeper and deeper. With one last desperate attempt, she sent out a cry for help on the city's communication grid, praying someone would hear. It was all she could do. Just as the darkness nearly surrounded her, a voice gurgled and whispered, "Welcome your oblivion just as I welcomed mine."

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The large forerunner craft raced towards the _Cairo_. The battle above Earth was over and there was an eerie quietness in the space surrounding the planet. Floating hunks of metal were everywhere belonging to both covenant and human ships. On one of the far corner of the planet, two disabled covenant battle cruisers silently hovered with fires bursting out of the rear engines. A battle cluster of UNSC troop carriers were on the way to the ships in preparations to board and capture them. The result of the battle was a resounding victory for humanity. It was in fact, the first truly dominant victory of the war for them. A covenant fleet mimicking the size of the one obliterating Reach was crushed and of the original USNC forces, nearly seventy five percent remained operational. This fact was surprising to both Master Chief and to the exiled covenant around him.

Although there was a truce between them, John felt that his company wanted no part of him. He had to agree that the feeling was a bit mutual. After spending so much time fighting them, killing them, and watching those around him fall to them, John found it hard to give up the pent up feelings of hate. He was sure that they felt the same way. The ODSTs on the bridge, meanwhile, chatted among themselves and even cracked some jokes. It would be foolish to assume they were completely lax, however, as they all kept a cautious eye on their fellow passengers, especially the elites and the hunter. Any time one of them even flinched, the ODSTs became silent and stared at the alien with their fingers tensely to the side of the triggers.

One ODST, a young private named Thomas Edwards, let curiosity get to the best of him and walked up to the elite commander. Gazing at him curiously the elite turned and looked back at the fully armored marine. Knowing he had the elite's attention he asked, "I joined the ODST division to fight you. Your ships destroyed my planet, my home, and took my mother, father, and my two sisters from me. What did we ever do to deserve this?"

The poignant question sent a sharp jab of pain and guilt into the heart of the golden elite. He took a deep breath and sighed before he sadly responded, "Why did we do this? Our leaders, the prophets … they … we were lied to. The command came shortly before your planet of Harvest was put to fire. We were told that your species had insulted our ancestors and threatened the completion of the great journey. Later on, before we were betrayed, the Arbiter notified the Sangheili command of possible treachery by the prophets, but the thought was unfathomable. Unfortunately, he was right. We were lied to, we were betrayed, and we're all covered with the blood of your innocence. There will be no great journey, no salvation for us now."

The ODSTs stood motionless, uncertain that what they heard was actually said. The rest of the covenant with the elite commander hung their heads down as if defeated. John carefully replayed the elite's revelation in his mind. Perhaps this would be the first stepping stone towards a more permanent peace between humanity and these exiled members of the covenant. Regardless of their decision, John was not ready to just yet inform them about their delusion of the great journey and reveal the true purpose of the halos.

The whole discussion, however, ate up several minutes worth of time and the strong voice of the A.I., Caesar, called out that they would be docking in five seconds. John inspected the side of the station exposed to the bridge of the ship. Deep plasma scars riddled the hull of the platform and there were several sub-areas which were destroyed. However, to his surprise and dismay, the bulk of the platform appeared to be structurally intact. John had witnessed in a very short time the pounding that the _Cairo_ endured and earnestly wondered how the station could withstand such ferocity. There was little time to ponder on that idea, though, as the bridge was illuminated in a bright white light as he forerunner craft attached to a boarding station on the _Cairo_.

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The phantom took off towards the _Faithful Blessing_ the instant the Arbiter entered the ship. Sergeant Johnson sat next to Miranda Keyes and they quietly conversed together.

"Well, this is certainly a change of action from what one would expect only days earlier," Keyes commented.

"I don't know what to think, 'mam," replied Johnson. "These guys want to kill us one day, and the next, we end up working together after Mohawk back there had a temper tantrum and decided to try and wipe out all life in the galaxy. I suppose it's for the best though, not that I couldn't take them all on." He took a breath and exhaled a plume of smoke from his cigar. "Besides, it's nice to get a free ride every now and then. I wonder what the foods like."

They stopped talking and looked across the passenger bay to see Ferrunee carefully rub his right forearm with a pained expression on his face. Noticing that the two humans were observing him, he quickly stood back at attention careful to not show any signs of weakness. There was a little discoloration above his wrist guard, but at the distance, neither of them could identify what was bothering the elite.

Miranda turned back to Johnson and sighed, "I hope the Chief is doing alright. That Arbiter said he was on High Charity but I over heard the mentioning of an invasion of the flood. With the covenant to worry about in addition to the flood, he probably has had his hands full for a while."

Johnson turned to his commander and smirked saying, "I bet the Chief is whooping both of their asses while having a picnic with Cortana. I wouldn't worry, 'mam. He's fine. There's not a single thing that he couldn't do, well, besides smile for the camera. Then again, if I was seven feet tall and wearing that big green Halloween costume, I might not be able to either."

Johnson got up to stretch his legs and then decided to walk up to the control room of the phantom and get a view of what was going on. As he neared the hatchway, Ferrunee reached out and blocked his way. "Please sit down … sergeant. We're almost there."

Johnson looked up at the elite and commented, "Well, since you said so, so politely," but before he returned to his seat, he gave the elite another one of his icy stares. It seemed to unsettle the elite slightly as the look penetrated him more than it had before. _This human is definitely no pushover … _

Back in his seat, Johnson gazed over to where a few grunts were sitting. One grunt in particular, named Nuyac, had been in a battle against Johnson before and hosted a scar on his cheek from a grazed bullet. In a display of mercy against the hysterical enemy, the marine had spared his life during the long distant battle. Johnson recognized Nuyac the second he saw the scar. When he had the grunt's undivided attention, he snapped his facial expression into his classic icy stare which penetrated to the very core of the grunt. The creature gave an unsettling cry and Johnson had a chance to chuckle to himself before Miranda gently smacked him on the arm, telling him to grow up.

A few minutes later, the cockpit door opened up and the Arbiter quickly walked out. Glancing quickly at the two humans, he promptly stated, "Come, we've arrived."

Wasting no time, the elite jumped onto the gravity lift and warped down, out of the phantom. Keyes and Johnson followed with Ferrunee and Nuyac behind them.

After adjusting their eyes to the brighter lights in the docking bay aboard the _Faithful Blessing_, Johnson noticed the Arbiter hastily walking away with a white armored elite to his side. Miranda noticed too, and started to clip along after them waving for Johnson to follow. To keep up with the elites, they nearly had to jog, and after what seemed like a few miles of jogging, they finally caught up to them in the bridge.

Panting, Johnson exclaimed, "God damn, I have got to stop smoking!" The Arbiter turned around and said slightly impressed, "Ah, nice to see you two could keep up." Gesturing towards the white elite, he continued, "Half-jaw, these are the two humans I encountered in the library in search for the sacred icon."

The specs-op elite raised an eye towards Johnson and Keyes. With only two fully functional mandibles, he was able to speak but only in a slightly muffled voice. "These are the humans that beat us to the sacred icon? With the lead over us, I assumed that the demon was with them. If they could make it that far just by themselves, then I may have underestimated their capabilities."

Johnson proudly exclaimed to the elites' comment, "You're damn right you underestimated us. If you ever get a free moment, I'll see you at the war games simulator and you'll learn what it's really like to get a butt-whoppin'."

Half-jaw merely looked at Johnson and shrugged the comment off. "Maybe someday, human, but for now, our hands are full." Turning back to the ceremoniously garbed elite, he continued, "Arbiter, we have full control of the ship. My team and I were able to defeat the brute guard. I lost some of my best soldiers, but their sacrifice in blood will be avenged along with the rest of our brothers."

"Indeed," the Arbiter replied emotionally. Clearing his throat, the elite issued to his new crew, "Let us move out now. We go to the holy city to avenge our fallen brethren! May the Gods reward our faith!"

The _Faithful Blessing_ slightly shook and the front display indicated that the ship was rising towards the outer atmosphere of halo. The sun shown pristinely on the underlying landscape but the signs of battle could easily be seen. Smoke bellowed from numerous fires around the horizon, the corpses of dead brutes burning to ash while the bodies of fallen elites lay buried, allowing their spirits to join their ancestors.

In a matter of moments, the ship was facing towards the imposing figure of High Charity. The ship seemed to get closer and closer at a breathtaking pace and the ancient city loomed larger and larger. Standing next to a panel of sophisticated looking displays, an elite cried out, Arbiter, scans show that the city's shields are activated! Life scans report blips of life throughout the ship, but they appear and disappear just as with previous experience with the flood! There also appears to be one slip space capable ship left on the city, the _Last__Remembrance_."

As soon as the elite finished his diagnostics report, a siren announced the reception of in incoming message. The Arbiter called for the message to be played on the main speaker system. What sounded next surprised everyone who listened.

A shrill, female voice cried out, "This is Cortana, UNSC A.I., can anyone read this? I repeat this is Cortana, UNSC A.I.! I am in severe trouble and request any aid to be sent immediately!"

Johnson nearly swallowed on the remaining stub of his cigar and the remaining crew aboard the bridge needed to take a deep gasp of breath before they could come to grips with the situation.

Miranda urgently exclaimed, "Is there anything we can do?"

Focusing on the ancient city, the Arbiter replied, "No, we can't get through those shields, but we can make a mighty knock on its door and distract whatever is attacking the construct." A quick nod of approval from Half-jaw signaled the Arbiter to cry out, "Attack squad one, prepare to board the city! Fire all weapons at the holy city's primary shielding!" Turning to the humans, he quickly commanded, "You two, go with the boarding squad, hurry!" Keyes and Johnson raced out of the hatch at nearly a full sprint out of the bridge and towards the main boarding hatch.

Alert sirens screamed to life and the ship shook indicating the main weapons had fired. Several large bolts of plasma raced towards the city followed by a half dozen plasma torpedoes. They impacted the shielding and were absorbed.

The Arbiter sighed and whispered, "I hope that got its attention."

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For a moment, the hands pulling her down seemed to let up. Cortana took the moment to jump out of the abyss that was consuming her and race to safety. An enraged voice of an ancient tongue caused the whole network to shake, but not before Cortana was able to program in a nasty virus which she had learned to make back on Reach. Unleashing the electronic pathogen on the force that nearly consumed her, she felt her control instantly increase.

Her control over the computer networking indicated that a Covenant ship had just attacked the city's shielding. Although the city wasn't damaged in any way, it had distracted her attacker just long enough to allow for an escape.

Before she could plan another action, a message forwarded itself into the city's communication channels. "Construct, this is the Arbiter aboard the _Faithful Blessing_. A phantom has been sent to docking bay 00-143 for extraction where your original message was sent. Two humans are with the boarders, I believe you know them. Is there any way you can shut down the shielding and allow us to enter?"

Overjoyed at the news of a rescue and at the thought of meeting friends, she rushed into High Charity's control grid. Quickly shutting down the enemy shielding, she sent out another transmission. "Thank you Arbiter, for the help. The shields are down and I'm ready for extraction."

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The phantom rushed down towards the indicated docking bay passing harmlessly through what was heavy shielding only moments before. Inside of the transport, Miranda Keyes and Sergeant Johnson activated their newly acquired plasma rifles along with the rest of the squad. Nuyac was with them along with nine other grunts. Ferrunee, Half-jaw, and three other elites joined the rest of attack squad one.

Half-jaw walked over to the humans and asked, "Do you humans know how to use these weapons effectively?" Johnson acted as if insulted and cried out, "How to use these effectively? Hell, I could pick drones out of the sky with this toy gun using only my toes! Don't you worry, we know how to use these things."

Half-jaw gave the elite impression of a laugh and commented, "Then try to impress me."

An elite cried out on the speaker comm., "We're at the target in, three … two … one … now!" The gravity lift came to life and the boarding squad quickly jumped out of the phantom.

The fresh air of the phantom was replaced with a heavy and stale air with dark green mist flowing out of the main doorways. A holo module lit up and Cortana urgently gestured them over. Running over to the A.I., Miranda pulled out a data chip and inserted it into the module. Cortana quickly transferred herself into the data disk and a green light signaled Commander Keyes to remove the chip. Placing it into her pocket, she hollered, "Got her, we're good to go!"

The response she got in return was the last thing she wanted, however, as several explosions ripped through the primary entry hatches on the far side of the chamber. Enemy fire poured through the door and dozens of flood forms raced towards them.

Johnson quickly pulled out a frag grenade and hurled it an amazing distance towards the far end of the chamber. The explosion ripped up the front most soldier forms but many more replaced them. "Dammit!" he yelled out. "Get your asses back into the ship, I'll slow them down!"

A loud clink of metal hitting metal sounded behind the marine and turning around, he saw two elites had dropped a large anti-matter bomb behind him. "Come, this here is a gift for the parasite!" one of the elites shouted. He activated the timer on the bomb and Johnson couldn't help but to smile.

Hurling another frag grenade at the enclosing flood, Johnson ran over to Miranda and grabbed her by the arm. "Let's go 'mam, our new friends left a surprise for the flood."

Miranda fired a few bursts at one of the nearest soldier forms and ran back with Johnson. The impact of the plasma from her gun burned right through the carrier form inside of it. The creature's legs gave out from underneath it and it crashed into the side of another flood form right behind it.

Stepping underneath of the gravity lift Johnson and Keyes flew up into the phantom and Half-jaw signaled they were clear to leave. The phantom vibrated as the main thrusters came to life. As the ship left the docking bay, various weapons fire harmlessly reflected off of the transport's shielding. Johnson jumped over to Half-jaw and said enthusiastically, "Now that's how you get it done!"

The white armored elite was indeed impressed with how the human handled himself. He had seen his own soldiers melt with fear with the sight of incoming flood of such numbers, but the human took them on with remarkable bravery. "Yes, and good job. I have rarely seen my own soldiers throw a grenade as far as you can, and your leadership skills shine well for your people."

Johnson nodded and smiled, "You're damn right!"

The enthusiastic crew left the phantom transport the second they had arrived back into the _Faithful Blessing_, but when they made it back to the bridge, the cheerful atmosphere quickly died down.

Turning to face Half-jaw, Johnson, and Keyes, the Arbiter solemnly said, "Good work bring back the construct, however, the bomb's timer sequence has been terminated."

Before anyone could respond, Cortana came to life in the portable holo device that Miranda had imported her into. "Johnson, Commander, it's so nice to see you and thank you so much!" Her bright expression faded as she faced the Arbiter, but she continued, "Excuse me, but that bomb you installed, if it's anything like the one on the _Cairo_ back on Earth, a direct shot of the main plasma cannon should set it off."

The Arbiter's nodded in agreement and replied, "That is correct. It'll be tough to do, but that's our last option. However, I think I can make that shot." After announcing to the engine command to prepare for a slip space jump to Earth, the Arbiter took the manual controls over the ships main weapon and focused on his target. He narrowed in the crosshairs towards the main entry chamber hosting the bomb and a narrow bead of sweat ran down the side of his face. With a sudden shake, the plasma gun erupted with a burst of hot, blue plasma and it sped towards its target.

After waiting a moment, the Arbiter commanded, "Jump into the slip stream in, five…"

The plasma burst raced ever closer to its target.

"… four…"

The crew had its eyes glued to the forward monitor watching the fiery blue speck get smaller and smaller.

" … three …"

The plasma blast passed through the empty shielding shell of High Charity.

" … two …"

Unbeknown to anyone on the _Faithful Blessing_, a large escape pod ejected out of the other side of the city and raced towards the empty blackness of space.

"… one …"

The plasma blast hit its target square on and the heat triggered the antimatter bomb to detonate. A blinding flash of light tore out of High Charity as the bomb augmented its blast by combining with the detonation of _Last Remembrance_'s engine core. The _Faithful Blessing_ punched through the slip stream gap just as the massive wave of energy swarmed over its position. The blast ripped through the city obliterating everything it touched. Soon, it reached the fusion cores of _In Amber Clad_ as well as the secondary energy source of High Charity. With a now combined blast rivaling that of a NOVA nuclear bomb cluster, the sphere of energy enveloped the city, the halo, and everything in between. As the blast reached the ejected pod, the shielding around it combined with that of a mysteriously powerful and ancient force managed to protect it from the wall of energy. As light from the blast was cleansed by the darkness of space, the small speck of an escape pod could be seen vanishing in the black abyss.

**Authors Notes: **Sorry again, about the delay in this chapter. In the next few updates, you'll see things get really crazy. Thanks to those who've left reviews – and to what some of you have commented: It is the Malta, my apologizes, not the Multa like I had spelled it. The new gun on the _Cairo_ is a MACK gun, totally independent of the main MAC, but I understand if there was any confusion differentiating them. But again, thanks to those of you who help point out my mistakes (and to everyone else of course!)


	5. All Roads Lead to Earth

All Roads Lead to Earth

It only took the Spartan moments to adjust to the familiar lights of the docking station aboard the _Cairo_. The large retractable passageway firmly attached to primary hull door on the great forerunner ship and a slight shudder from the spacecraft indicated that they were now connected to the defense station. John glanced over at his prisoner who continued to slouch over his hovering platform, breathing softly, but still soundly unconscious. In a move of diplomatic genius, the Chief gestured for the golden elite to walk forward and said, "Truth is our prisoner. Bring him in with me so that my people will see what we're capable of … together."

The commander was stunned and only thought such honor capable by his fellow Sangheili. He expected to be presented to the human command as a prisoner himself, along with the prophet. His deep hatred for the Chief was fading as he replied, "Demon, you continue to surprise me. This is a generous act of honor you're bestowing on us, something I thought impossible of your race."

John smirked inside of his helmet. "Life's full of surprises." Turning his attention to the marine ODSTs with them, he continued. "Alright marines, move in the back and follow us up!"

Snapping to attention, a unified yell of "Sir!" signaled that the command was to be obeyed. They walked to the back of the column in four rows of six, weapons at marine attention, standing straight, proud and strong.

The march began after John's first step. Next to him was the limp body of the prophet of Truth and aside from the prophet, the golden armored elite followed step in unison with the Chief.

Looking through the windows on the docking pathway, the flight of dozens of heavy UNSC battle cruisers were easily discernable as they circled around the _Cairo_. Although it was a rather large security measure, the exiled covenant seemed to be more drawn by the image of Earth. John heard one of the elites comment how much Earth looked like their own world. However, the other side of the passageway had all of the Spartan's attention as he prepared himself for the reception they were all about to encounter.

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The sight of his ship traveling through the wormhole of slip space was commonplace for the Arbiter. The _Faithful Blessing_ was on an urgent trajectory to Earth, the home of Sergeant Johnson and Commander Keyes. Remembering how his fleet once decimated the human fortress world of Reach, the elite sighed at the assumption that Earth would look nothing more than an incinerated shell, empty and dead, with humanity gone with it. From High Charity to Earth, the journey would take upwards of twelve hours, about four hours faster than the human's best ships. Due to the travel time, much of the crew was asleep, preparing for the worst when the jump was complete.

While his body ached with fatigue, the Arbiter had difficulty letting sleep take hold. There was great pressure and sadness on his shoulders which kept his mind occupied. Looking left and right, he saw how the bridge was devoid of life besides for himself. The two humans were sent to a special quarters for rest, much of his crew was asleep, and the holy oracle was busy exchanging information with the human construct, Cortana.

His hands began to move towards the side locks on his armor, and with a slight click, the ceremoniously decorated chest plate dropped to the floor revealing the elite's darkened and scared chest. Without conscious thought, his eyes moved towards the scar borne over his heart forever marking him as a heretic. The stigma burned into his soul and flooded him with disgrace and shame. Thoughts and images flashed through his troubled mind.

_Two sacred rings have been destroyed, one by my neglect, one by my own hands. The holy city, the sanctum of the Arbiters, home to the spirits of fallen brothers, all erased from this world. I was responsible for it all, I've caused so much shame for the ancestors. What we always held dearest, the Great Journey, everything, all a lie, and for that, the blood of innocents has been spilt. What is the point of my life? Why was I placed on this world to only create such destruction and only dishonor my brothers and sisters? Is there any possible way I can ever try to redeem what I've already taken away…?_

Picking up his fallen chest plate, the Arbiter attached it back on, once again covering the great mark of shame. He knew what he had to do to make things right once again. It wouldn't be easy, but it had to be done. Leaning back and sitting in his command chair, the lone elite let sleep blanket his thoughts as he finally began to make peace with himself.

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Sergeant Johnson wasn't one for long periods of sleep. Used to the nearly constant fighting over more years than he wanted to admit, he had perfected the technique of short power naps. After resting for about three hours, he woke up, saw that Commander Keyes was still sound asleep in the adjacent room, and decided to stretch his legs. Walking out of the chamber and into the hallway, Johnson instantly felt the silence around him. What was worse was that the feeling was not new, he had felt it before. Years back, before the battle of Paris IV, there was the same exact silence. It was the quiet before the storm, or rather, the quiet before the category five hurricane.

Johnson's aging body ached of the numerous engagements he had fought on, of all the wounds he had suffered, and of all the marines that he had lost under his command. Drifting in his thoughts, he accidentally walked into one of the many small medical stations throughout the ship. As the door's motion sensor let out a little beep, Johnson snapped back to reality only to see in front of him Ferrunee addressing the wound to his right forearm while Nuyac frantically searched through several drawers.

The blue armored elite instantly looked at Johnson and their eyes met each other. A second of uncertainty passed until Johnson broke the ice.

"What happened to that arm of yours? Seems like a nice little piece shrapnel found a home."

Knowing that he was caught and hiding the wounded arm any further was pointless, the elite shook his head as if embarrassed and replied, "While we were removing the Jiralhanae filth from this ship, I was caught unaware by a blast from one of their grenades. My shields were recharging after the battle and the blast sent a shard of metal into my arm. I will not go to the medical wing and have it looked at, I will not be thought of as weak."

Nuyac turned around to see what the discussion was about and instantly dropped some bandages on the ground the second he saw Johnson. Deathly afraid of the marine, the grunt slowly walked back against the wall.

Upset by the creature's lack of courage, Ferrunee barked an order at Nuyac to pick up the bandages and bring them over. Before the terrified grunt had an opportunity to move, Johnson strode over to the bandages and picked them up. Looking straight at the him, Johnson calmly said, "Relax, will ya'? I'm not going to hurt you. Those days are over, and it's about damn time."

Turning his attention to the injured elite, Johnson picked out a pair of tweezers from his personal med-kit and signaled for him to hold out his arm.

"Come on, I was trained in medicine during basic, let me take that metal out of your arm."

As Johnson reached over to grasp the elites arm, Ferrunee whipped it back and growled, "Don't you dare touch me."

His temper rising, Johnson shot back, "Look tough guy, you can just leave that crap in the wound, let it get infected, and when they have to amputate your whole arm you can look even more like a prideful bastard. Now let me see that wound."

Ferrunee slammed his healthy arm in exasperation and held out the injured one. Johnson immediately grasped on to the wrist with a firm hold and after a quick inspection, inserted the tweezers into the cut flesh. The elite clenched its mandibles together in discomfort but after a few seconds, the marine pulled the tweezers out with a small, jagged shard of metal on the other end. Reaching into his med-kit again, Johnson put antibacterial cream onto the bandage and wrapped it around the elites arm.

"There, how's it feel now? And don't tell me it's worse otherwise someone is going to get it."

Ferrunee looked at his mended forearm. It felt innumerably times better and he could already begin to move it as he would with a perfectly healthy one. Looking back at Johnson, the elite took in a deep breath and replied, "It feels better, thank you sergeant."

He proceeded to get up and walked out the door with Nuyac following behind. Surprising the battle harden marine, the grunt looked at Johnson before he walked out the door and waved. Although the grunt had its breathing mask attached over its face, Johnson could have sworn that the creature had just smiled.

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The blast doors on the far end of the passageway groaned as countless gears churned, pulling the heavy metal pieces apart. John immediately recognized the large room as the primary hanger for the pelicans and heavy equipment. Rather than being filled with transports, scorpions, and warthogs, the room was instead hosted by a semicircle of hundreds of marines on the floor and many more standing at attention on the balconies.

Admiral Hood and a man wearing a white laboratory jacket whom John didn't recognize stood in the center.

The marines first gazed at Master Chief and the unconscious form of Truth hovering next to him and then at the golden elite to the far side. The atmosphere was extremely tense and besides for the sound of foot on metal floor, the drop of a pin could have been heard. Each marine had their fingers next to their triggers, eager to blast the enemy into pieces if they made the wrong move.

The elite commander paid no attention to the marines surrounding them and kept his eyes forward. However, this didn't stop the covenant behind from looking around. They nervously marched ahead, expecting to be obliterated in a hail of bullets. As the last ODSTs behind them marched into the room, the blast doors rattled again as they began to shut.

The echo of the closed doors resonated around the room until the tense silence took over. Admiral Hood made the first move and walked over to the Chief. "Great job, Chief, in securing the objective." The Spartan instinctively saluted the admiral and received one in reply. Admiral Hood then walked over to the golden elite and calmly said, "This is quite a surprise. After so many years of war, I hope that your own may decide that peace might be desirable. Due to your assistance in capturing the Prophet of Truth, you will all be allowed to participate in his trial. For now, living quarters have been assigned, but the prophet will go to a holding cell. Please be prepared to go to the surface tomorrow so we can find out what started this war after all. However, this is all on the assumption that hostilities will cease between us."

The elite smoothly replied, "Thank you for your hospitality. Although I can not speak for all of my own, I am sure that the truce will be agreed on. I only hope that in time we will be able to atone for the crimes we've committed against your people."

"That is good to hear and maybe someday, we can put this all behind us." Turning back to the Chief, Hood continued, "Master Chief, this Lieutenant wants a word with you." He gestured for the man in the lab coat to come over and Adam quickly obeyed.

"Wow, it's an honor to see you, sir! I have something that you may find very helpful. Come this way please!" Adam said with an obvious tone of excitement. The Chief followed him out of the large room and through a door to the far right.

Focusing his attention back on the Covenant, Admiral Hood ordered the ODSTs to escort them to their holding quarters. The prophet, however, was taken to a very secure prisoner cell to wait for his journey to Earth and bring to light what so many were asking.

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The Arbiter awoke as Cortana's voice played over the speaker system, "We'll be leaving slip space in approximately 30 minutes."

Quickly shaking off his drowsiness, the elite picked up the microphone to his side and added on, "Everyone back to their stations. Be prepared for anything the moment we exit. If we're lucky, the humans will have wiped out most of the prophet's forces."

Setting down the microphone, the Arbiter scanned the bridge as elites began to filter in to their stations. He couldn't take his mind off of the thought that Earth would be put to fire and that Truth was nearing the ark, preparing to fire the remaining halos. The anxiety continued to eat at him as he desperately wished for the ship to hurry up.

It only took a few minutes for the sleeping ship to be at full alert. Johnson and Keyes returned to the bridge and Cortana welcomed them with a great big, "Good morning!"

Facing the two humans, the Arbiter gravely spoke. "You are all aware of what may be awaiting us once we exit slip space, correct?"

Miranda calmly replied, "Yes, and I do hope things got better. With the Chief joining the fight, I'm sure that they're doing alright." Then she kicked herself for saying that._ There were many Spartans when Reach fell, and even they weren't able to repel the Covenant armada. What possibility does the Chief have to do such a thing on his own?_

Johnson, almost reading her mind, tried to calm her and said, "Don't worry 'mam, I'm sure that we were able to throw some surprises at those bastards. If I heard Admiral Hood correctly, he mentioned some kind of secret weapon on the _Cairo_. Maybe the defenses held out."

"Let us only hope so," the Arbiter commented. "Construct, were you able to find out where exactly this ark is from the holy oracle?"

Cortana's voice emanated from the central control board and replied, "Yes, although it was a bit difficult to be honest. That machine was very reluctant at giving up any of its core knowledge. It did mention that due to the shifting of Earth's tectonic plates, it'll have to scan a few possible locations until it finds the right place."

"Very well," replied the elite.

The remaining time in slip space was marked with a nervous silence. Although they all expected to see Earth utterly defeated and destroyed, there was a glimmer of home in the hearts of them all that Earth would still be defended and that the last bastion of humanity was still standing.

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Admiral Hood returned to the command post aboard the _Cairo_. There was so much to take care of. It didn't help that ONI was trying to swarm the defense station and get their hands on the captured prophet. Although he did not know anything specific, he suspected that the some deep, dark, and mysterious project revolved around the covenant and ONI and all of the attention his new prisoner was receiving further justified his idea. Despite all of their attempts, Hood swore that it would be his hands to bring the prophet down to Earth so that everyone would be able to hear the truth about this cataclysmic war.

Just as he took a moment to relax, a nervous voice rang out, "Sir, there are whispers straight out from our location. Looks like something or some things are about to leave slip space."

Quite surprised, Admiral Hood ordered, "Man your positions, I want to know who and what is there when they leave slip space"

"Yes, sir!"

The detected whispers were accurate and moments later a large covenant battle cruiser punched through its shortcut in space only to behold the great defensive wall surrounding Earth still intact. Admiral Hood took a step back and then just shrugged his shoulders. Although it was very uncommon for covenant ships to fall victim to the slight delays in slip space travel, this must have been one of the rare occasions.

"Wait for my signal and blow that ship to pieces like we did the rest," commanded Admiral Hood. Although instinct told him to rip the ship to shreds, something inside of him said to wait and find out for sure who was on that ship. Sure enough, an officer at the communications station yelled aloud, "Sir, I think you might want to listen to this."

"Ok, play it on the main speakers."

Everyone's eyes burst open as the voice of Cortana rang throughout the room. "This is Cortana aboard the covenant ship, _Faithful Blessing_. The covenant aboard are friendly, I repeat friendly, so please do not fire."

Admiral Hood answered with great surprise, "Cortana, can you tell me what you're doing on that ship!"

One of the officers present on deck jabbed the other in the side and whispered, "If she says 'finishing this fight,' you owe me a new warthog."

The A.I. responded hurriedly, "Sir, I'm with Commander Keyes and Sergeant Johnson. We have with us an elite named the Arbiter, one who seems to have the command of rest. We also have information regarding the ark, the control room for every halo, and we're here to stop the Prophet of Truth from activating it on Earth."

"Cortana, Master Chief and members of the exiled Covenant captured Truth and we have him in custody here aboard the _Cairo_. We successfully destroyed his fleet so this ark you speak of has not been activated yet."

There was a brief silence and then a strong, deep, and unknown voice replied, "This is good news. I am the Arbiter, commander of this vessel. It pleases me to see that you repulsed his fleet. Do we have permission to enter your space and board the _Cairo_?"

Just as the Admiral began to reply, Johnson's voice kicked onto the speakers. "Holy shit! Are you telling me we actually won that battle! See, I told you Earth would be alright! Those nasty gorilla bastards aren't that tough."

Hood chuckled. "Sergeant, nice to hear your voice, and I'm glad Miranda is alright, too. Arbiter, you have permission to place your ship in stationary orbit around Earth and then board the _Cairo_. Have Cortana send the coordinates the secondary pelican entry bay."

The elite simply answered, "Appreciated," and the conversation ended.

The old Admiral had seen many strange things during his days in the navy, but today just made up the rest of the cake. This whole sudden climax at the end of the battle, humanity actually winning decisively for once, followed by the proposition of a possible truce between some of the members of the Covenant made things weird enough. Now the news of an ark, an activation complex on Earth made the man's head spin even more. The Admiral lifted his cap and brushed the sweat from his forehead. _At least this beats fighting…._

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Lieutenant Adam Mitchell hurriedly paced down the hallways in the _Cairo_ to his own lab. The pace of the scientist surprised John as even he had to pick up his pace to keep up with him. John noticed how the blood and bodies of both covenant and marines had been largely cleaned up. The damaged and bullet ridden hallways were being patched up and people quickly milled about trying to clean up the mess that followed after the covenant had boarded the station.

They finally reached their destination and Adam swiped his security card through the I.D. panel. The affirmative beep and a green light indicated that the security clearance was granted and the doors whipped open. A rather small and messy room with decent lighting appeared. Adam walked in and commented over his back, "I'm sorry, but if I was expecting company earlier, I would have tidied up a little bit."

The Chief didn't bother answering but kept his eyes pealed on everything he saw in the room, absorbing all his eyes could see. Finally turning his attention back to the frantically moving scientist, he watched as Lieutenant Mitchell cleared off a large desk, placed two large pieces of metal standing upright onto it, and then preceded to hand the Chief a covenant plasma rifle.

"Ok Chief, I bet when you saw the aftermath of the battle, you had several thoughts swimming through your head. One might have been, how could the Cairo take such a beating of plasma without falling apart? Well, here's a demonstration to answer that thought. Please fire at one place on that piece of metal."

Complying with the scientists' wishes, the Chief aimed and let lose a concentrated stream of plasma fire onto one section of the metal. The metal absorbed the first two bursts and began to glow red hot after taking in a few more. After about ten shots on the one location, a small hole could be seen going through the metal plate. Adam commented, "You see Chief, that is what you're used to seeing. It's an half inch thick plate of Titanium A, and it does a reasonably good job at handling limited bursts of concentrated plasma fire before it starts degrade. Now do the same exact thing on the second plate."

Not seeing where this was going, the Chief opened fire on the second plate. Unlike the reaction with the first plate of metal, this sheet took in about ten shots to even show any signs of reaction. John halted his fire to let the plasma rifle cool back down and looked at the metal. He noticed a very slight, bubble like expansion where the plasma hit, but it miraculously flattened out as his plasma rifle cooled. Not sure what to do, John looked at Adam who in turn handed the chief two brute plasma rifles. "Hey, I just got my hands on these from the ships they captured a little while ago. Try it again."

The Spartan dropped his plasma rifle and took the two brute plasma rifles. Their reddish hue was indication enough to the Chief of their improved firepower. As he learned the hard way while on High Charity, these things could chew through shielding much quicker than the other plasma fire he had previously experienced. Their impact on the flesh was even worse as one direct burst could eat right through a part of unprotected body.

Focusing on the same spot as before, John opened up again with a deadly hail of red fire. Releasing the trigger just before the guns overheated, John anxiously looked to see the crisp hole that should have been present in the sheet of metal. He dropped his two weapons as he noticed the same effect as before. Although the expansion appeared to be about a millimeter or so thicker than before, it began to reshape again before his eyes.

Adam whistled out loud and commented, "Master Chief, you are witnessing history. From the dawn of time, humanity has learned to adapt to kick its enemy's asses. This, you see, is what is now coating every defense platform and nearly every heavy battle cruiser orbiting Earth. Welcome to the blissful world of Titanium A plus! Its creation had something to do with my work with plasma allowing ONI to focus the rest of its scientists on an improved version of the titanium armor. This was the result, perfected only several months before. Its molecular anatomy contains an extra set of empty, high energy orbitals which can absorb an incredibly large amount of energy. As the atoms absorb the energy of the plasma, the electrons jump to this higher energy orbital, expand, but then retain their integrity as they release the heat and cool off. Unless the covenant bombard the same exact spot of a ship with about a dozen or so heavy bursts, nothing is going to penetrate its hull. Oh, and don't let me forget that the metal is just as strong against bullets as before. Isn't chemistry amazing?"

John never took any really deep classes in such subjects, but he was thoroughly impressed with what we witnessed. It would indicate why so many ships survived the assault from the covenant armada.

Still smiling, Adam opened another door and gestured for the Spartan to follow. "If you thought that was cool, you should see this."

The next room was even smaller than the one before, and much of the space was comprised of large computer equipment. Opening up a holographic display which also lit up the room, Adam started a program. "You see Chief, this is my little toy, although it was many, many years in the making." Pointing to a display on the projection, he continued, "Each covenant capital ship has a primary plasma turret which is capable of launching out streams of super heated plasma. We managed to figure out how it works and even make a few improvements. As you might have seen while on that large spacecraft, these computers control the next generation of the MAC weaponry. How it works is more fancy chemistry and physics which I'll tell you later if you want, but the idea behind it is that with our own magnetic fields, fusion energy, and this nifty new material I created, we can throw at the covenant plasma bolts exponentially more powerful than anything they have. Its success here will probably imply that it will be implemented onto the rest of the spacecraft and this can only mean that we may be victorious in this war after all!"

John blankly stared at the scientist trying as best as he could to understand all of the information presented before him. He finally managed to comment, "Yeah, this is amazing."

Adam, still smiling from ear to ear led the Chief out of his small control room. "I'm sorry if this was out of your way, but I just wanted to show you these cool things. Thanks to your bravery, courage, and willingness to fight, you've not only been an inspiration to us all, but you've been a great help to ensure our survival long enough for us to bring back the offensive!"

As John walked down the hallway, he calmly replied, "I'm glad that you were able to repel the covenant armada. It lifts a lot of the burden off of my shoulders."

A door behind the Spartan closed and looking back, the scientist had gone back into his room. Turning around, John continued to move back towards the bridge. Although he was a bit tired, he had a feeling inside of his gut that there was going to be even more excitement.

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The phantom slowed its speed as it approached the entry bay of the _Cairo_. Inside, 343 Guilty Spark, Sergeant Johnson, Miranda Keyes, Cortana, and the Arbiter patiently waited to arrive at the assigned location. The elite thought it would be unwise to board the ship with a whole team of his brethren by his side and therefore suggested that he alone join the two humans and their construct. The oracle was busy hovering about and commenting how exciting it was going to be to find the ark and see the human race. Johnson covered his hears and tried to ignore the slightly annoying machine, but Keyes and the Arbiter seemed to be doing fine, quietly sitting and awaiting to arrive at the defense platform. Cortana was driving the phantom manually and expertly maneuvered the craft into the docking bay.

Her voice sprang up on the com-link. "We're home! Please don't forget to extract me before you leave."

The gravity lift came to life and Miranda walked into the pilot room, inserting the female A.I. back into her transport device. Lining up before the gravity lift, the Arbiter looked back at the two humans.

Johnson nodded his head forward and commented, "Don't you worry, they know you're coming and you won't be hurt. Marines are tough bastards, but we aren't stupid and shoot at anything that moves."

With the human's encouragement, the Arbiter took a deep breath and jumped down the gravity lift followed by the rest of the crew.

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**Authors Notes**: Funny how these chapters get progressively longer. This chapter tries to portray the title and have a bunch of individual accounts diverge ultimately into one (which will be completed at the beginning of the next chapter). I don't know how effectively this device will be apparent to you readers, but hey, I tried! Hope you enjoy the science background. Oh, and don't worry, think of this chapter as a cinematic scene in the actual story. The action will be picking up again very soon! Thanks for reading, and please let me know what you think!


	6. The Ark

The Ark

The Arbiter gracefully landed up the hard metal floor. Raising his head, he saw an older looking human in a white uniform decorated with numerous medals. On the balconies to each side, dozens of armed marines stood at guard with their BR55's across their chests, poised and ready to open fire at the least provocation. What he didn't expect was to see was the golden armored elite by his side with several other members of the exiled covenant behind him. The elite zealot exclaimed with joy, "Impossible! The Arbiter, he still lives! Brother, I am sorry that we did not heed your advice earlier. It may have given us the edge over the Jiralhanae."

"Dominuee! It warms my heart to see you made it off High Charity before the flood were able to overwhelm you," the Arbiter happily responded. He instantly recognized the elite commander the second he saw him. The elite had been faithful and remained a great friend even after he was branded with the mark of shame. Characteristically, Dominuee's posture was not as slouched as the standard elite when at rest. He easily stood at a full eight foot six except when needing to duck under low pathways.

Sergeant Johnson ran over to the side of the Arbiter and exclaimed, "Sweet mother of God it sure feels good to be home!" Then remembering he was in front of a superior officer, he cleared his throat and respectfully saluted the admiral.

Admiral Hood smiled as he looked at Johnson. Miranda followed behind the sergeant and 343 Guilty Spark eagerly hummed around the room absorbing every little detail.

Answering the sergeant's salute, Hood gave one in return and said, "Soldier, it is good to see that you and Commander Keyes are in good health. I didn't know what to think after you followed Regret's ship as it bugged out. Although the ship's jump destroyed much of New Mombasa, there is no more Covenant presence on Earth. As you can see, I think that those new upgrades that they built onto Earth's defense forces are now more than capable of halting any Covenant fleet."

Miranda spoke up after remembering the sight of so many ravaged covenant ships floating around in space among the victorious UNSC forces. "Sir, with all due respect, how did we win the battle here? I mean, from the looks of it, the size of their fleet rivaled that of the one destroying Reach."

Just as she finished he question, the far door opened up and John walked in. "I can answer that, 'mam. Let's just say that there are some people around who really know their sciences." He neatly saluted Admiral Hood and walked over to the group. "Sir, I received orders to come here."

"Yes, Master Chief. I thought you might want to be here and see this," the admiral firmly answered.

The Arbiter was distracted for a moment watching the monitor hovering about and muttering things to its self. However, the familiar voice of the Spartan drew in his attention. "Demon! It appears that we were fated to meet again."

Johnson looked at the Admiral and commented, "Yeah see, those guys over there have that whole new nickname for the Chief. Guess it must be kind of frustrating when one genetically enhanced soldier manages to kick their asses again and again. I like 'Chief' better though."

Ignoring the sergeant, John smoothly replied back to the elite, "Yeah, except things are a bit different now. Now that you know the truth, maybe you can find humanity a bit more … bearable."

The ceremoniously armored elite nodded his head slowly before answering. "Yes. After all these years, I finally see the truth for what it is. Although we have rarely seen it, when peace is brought to this galaxy, we will do all that it takes to amend for our sins and return the honor we once possessed."

Finally deciding to express its thoughts, the monitor hovered down to Master Chief and cheerfully said, "Ah, the reclaimer! I am pleased to see that you finally contained the flood back on the installation, although I found your method to be highly unorthodox! Your species, humanity you call it, looks strangely familiar to my creators except for the lack of the genetic augmentation that many of them experienced."

Admiral Hood raised an eye at 343 Guilty Spark. "Is this thing covenant?"

Miranda quickly answered, "No, it was on the original halo my father found and was created by the forerunners. The Covenant managed to capture it and used it to almost activate the second halo. It's what will help us in finding the ark down on Earth."

Nodding his head for understanding, the Admiral replied, "Very good, Cortana, come to the bridge with this machine so that we can begin searching for this so called ark. We will have transportation ready when it arrives. Until then, I want you, Commander, as well as Sergeant Johnson, and the Master Chief to assemble an assault team and go to the coordinates when available. Arbiter, you are welcome to assemble your own assault team with us. Let this be the first cooperative assignment of our races."

The Arbiter signaled to Dominuee to load up his team on the phantom. He answered affirmatively to Admiral Hood. "Yes, I am very eager to find the truth behind the prophet's lies. I believe that the ark will be a start in the right direction. We will be ready upon signal." He nodded to the human admiral and followed the rest of his team into the phantom. Seconds later, the alien craft roared to life and left the docking bay.

Admiral Hood faced John. "Chief, you know what do to." Taking the data chip containing Cortana from Miranda, he gestured the monitor to follow as he walked out the door. Johnson paced over to the Spartan and smacked him on the shoulder.

"It's good to see you alive and well, Chief. Lets go get find this ark." Walking towards the exit, he turned around and jovially commented, "Com'mon! Don't tell me I'll have to hold your hand!"

John grunted to himself. It was good to see the sergeant again, even if he had to put up with his marine style humor. Regardless, he'd rather listen to a thousand of his bad jokes than have to go into combat without him. Following the marine out the door and with Miranda beside him, he exited the room along with the other marines standing guard. For one not knowing the preceding events, no one would guess that the very beginnings of a new era between the exiled covenant and humanity had just taken place in that very spot.

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Adam Mitchell had sat back in his declinable chair and had fallen asleep. It had been over two whole days before he could have a chance to rest, and sleep gladly surrounded his consciousness. The blackness that clouded his sight sent him into a deep, deep sleep, but something inside of his mind remained active.

Although the Lieutenant was deep asleep, a bright light grew in his closed eyes and the form of a large figure covered in a dark black cape appeared. The bright light illuminating from behind the figure prevented Adam's mind from getting an accurate glimpse of the apparition's face, but it looked surprisingly human. The hooded figure walked a little ways towards him until it appeared that it was about ten yards away. Without notice, a booming voice rang through Adam's mind.

"You have done well, my son. Thanks to your efforts and the guidance we provided to others, humanity has been giving the last lifeline it needs for survival against the alien horde. Remember, the blood of the forerunners flow through you. Although you may not realize it, you will understand the truth soon. My son, you've made us proud. The grand cannon you created fits our designs perfectly, but the second item we told you to make, the weapon for humanity's chosen one, you must give it to him before he leaves the installation. Move, my son, go! Time is of the essence!"

Adam woke up drenched in a cold sweat. He had experienced such dreams before, but he could never make sense of why he had them. They came every now and then, usually when he faced a great problem or before something big was about to happen. It all started when he was six and was playing in the street. A voice commanded him to stop moving and to immediately step back. He did so without consciously complying. Nothing seemed to happen until he looked up. A great metal beam fell in the exact spot he was standing before. It would have crushed him like a bug if he hadn't moved. Every since that day, the voices came every now and then, but he could never explain why he had them.

_Go! The chosen one must have that weapon if they are to survive!_

Panicking, Lieutenant Mitchell threw open one of his lockers, picking up what looked like the breeding of a BR55 Battle Rifle and M90 Shotgun which was then fed steroids. It was a bit too big and awkward for a marine to use it, but it would be perfect for the seven foot tall Spartan. Powering up the internal hydrogen fuel and grabbing several thin canisters containing a very densely compacted hydrogen solid, he ran out the door to meet the Chief before it was too late.

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The bridge of the Cairo was a flurry of action as 343 Guilty Spark quickly analyzed thermal and microwave images of Earth to find the location of the ark. Looking at an hour worth of data, the monitor finally chimed a great laugh and exclaimed, "Found it! Oh I am just so good aren't I? You see, numerous volcanic eruptions of the past millennia had covered the site with several thick layers of rock and ash. I am most certain that the ark's main entrance is at a desolate location only a few kilometers outside of the city you call New Mombasa. Yes, I am certain that's it. Now you just need a way to burrow through about a mile of dirt and rock!"

Admiral Hood scratched his chin for a moment in deep thought and finally asked aloud to Cortana, "Do you know of any way we can quickly burrow through that much of the ground?"

Taking a moment to analyze all of the potential scenarios Cortana replied, "Sir, conventional drilling will take about two days to cover such a depth and make the hole wide enough to transport personnel and equipment. A few rounds from the MAC cannons might be able to do the job quicker, but it could potentially damage the site."

Deep in though, Admiral Hood finally sighed, "We don't have such a liberty of time. I wasn't planning to go back to Earth for another twelve hours, but this must be dealt with immediately. Cortana, send a message to the Arbiter and ask if they have anything that'll work."

"Yes sir …. Message sent."

About ten seconds passed and Cortana announced that the Arbiter was hailing back and requested connection to a live video feed. Complying the request, Admiral Hood ordered that the elite's ship was to be connected to the _Cairo's_ video feed. The image of the Arbiter covered the screen as he proposed an answer to the problem.

"Admiral Hood, although this method has not been used for a long time, it has previously worked. Our scarabs can be retrofitted and a large drill can be mounted onto its main gun. Although it worked successfully during an operation during the grunt rebellion, such a method was not repeated after failure to secure the tunnel led to its collapse killing an entire division of our Sangheili. If you can provide structural support, we can drill to such a depth in less than an hour."

Cortana jumped into the conversation commenting, "Sir, there is a large steel refinery about two hundred kilometers from the drilling site. I'm sure that we could get the metal beams needed for the tunnel's integrity there."

Admiral Hood thought over the idea and replied, "That will have to do. How long until you will be ready to begin?"

"We will be ready in thirty minutes," the elite answered. All I ask is permission to enter Earth's atmosphere so we can drop the scarab with our gravity lift."

Admiral Hood nodded his head over to the holo display Cortana was on. "Notify the Master Chief and Sergeant Johnson that an assault team is to be sent to Earth on the double. They need to be ready to go in thirty minutes." Facing the Arbiter, he concluded, "Very well, we'll be ready when you are. Hood out."

The communications link was closed and both parties prepared to go to Earth.

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Sergeant Johnson and the Master Chief paced the hallways catching up on lost time. Johnson proceeded to boast how he took out nearly fifty flood combat forms in the quest for delta halo's activation key. Of course, when John recanted his epic tale of traveling through the entire city of High Charity alone, Johnson simply grunted. Although one might think that there was a competitive rivalry between the two marines, by looking deeper, the brotherly bond that only two soldiers can share would become obviously apparent.

In the middle of their conversation, the comm. speakers blared out Admiral Hood's order. "Assault squads alpha through epsilon, report to pelican bay Charlie for immediate departure to Earth. Master Chief and Sergeant Johnson, please escort the troops to the Earth bound destination."

Johnson away from the speaker and simply said to John, "It's show time Chief."

Turned around, the two soldiers began to jog towards the pelican bay. They passed the movement of many marines as they geared up for departure. Turing around one corner, John nearly ran over Lieutenant Mitchell as he gasped for air.

"Master Chief! I need to give this to you. You might need it."

John looked at the weapon with an inquisitive look. "What is it?"

Johnson impatiently snapped, "Look son, we don't have time for this! Chief, grab the man and bring him with us to the pelican bay. As we head towards the surface he can tell us what exactly this monstrosity is."

Although Adam was hunched over trying to fill his lungs with oxygen after sprinting all over the _Cairo_ searching for the Master Chief, John effortlessly scooped up the scientist with one arm and continued the quick jog with Johnson to their destination.

Arriving in the pelican bay, the three men were greeted by the scene of five pelicans revving their lift thrusters as they prepared to take off. One of the squad leaders already on board shouted above the din, "Chief, Johnson, jump in the closest pelican! We have to get moving now!"

Obliging the request, they leapt into the nearest pelican already full with marines. Squeezing together to make room for the extra boarders, the Chief let go of Adam and Johnson filled in behind them. The pelican doors shut and they roared out into space, greeted with the looming figure of the _Faithful Blessing_, en route to the location of the ark.

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The sky was dark at the coordinates laid out by the monitor. Smoke, dirt, and dust from the destroyed city of New Mombasa were carried by the wind and blanked the sun's rays giving a kind of eerie feel for a typically sunny day. The pelicans dropped off the soldiers as well leaving behind construction equipment for setting up the metal supports in the tunnel. Sergeant Johnson and John began to collect the teams of marines and the leader of team alpha walked over to the Chief with a data chip in his outreached hand.

"Sir, Cortana is on this. The order to leave the _Cairo_ came so suddenly, that we didn't have time to give her to you before we left."

John took the chip, inserted it into the side of his helmet, and he was once again graced with the presence of Cortana.

"Hey, it feels good to be back in here. How're things going for you?"

John gruffly responded, "Fine, thanks." Despite the apparent sound of apathy, the Spartan felt much more comfortable as they prepared to journey to the ark.

Master Chief grasped the weapon that Adam had given to him on the pelican. It felt different than the other weapons he had previously used. All of the weapons he used were specifically designed for either marine or covenant use and they all took time getting used to. However, this new rifle felt like it perfectly fit into his hands.

Walking next to the Spartan, Adam reminded the Chief, "Remember, this weapon should not be used near you for the blast resonates an EMP and will deplete your shields. Oh, and please let me come with you into the forerunner structure. There is, uh, a personal reason why I need to come."

The Spartan only looked at the weapon again and nodded. "Just don't get in the way."

343 Guilty Spark had traveled with team beta and was hovering about the location it claimed was the entrance to the forerunner structure. Sending a signal to the covenant craft, the gravity lift activated and its blue glow pulsated from the mid-belly of the ship down to the ground. After a brief wait, the large silhouette of a scarab floated down from the gravity lift and landed on the ground as its legs extracted from the body. A brief look would indicate that this scarab was no different from any other. However, that image was shattered when the protective front plates opened up and revealed a large drill where the front plasma cannon should have been.

The scarab began to move into position where the monitor sent the signal with the typical sounds of moving metal parts. The now empty gravity lift was filled with the bodies of many elite warriors, several teams of highly trained grunts, and two pairs of hunters. The Arbiter and the while armored elite, Half-Jaw, walked out from the center of the group towards Johnson and John.

The Arbiter was the first to speak. "We come with two teams of hunters and four teams of our best warriors. I see that you have five squads of marines. I feel that we'll be more than prepared for whatever lays beneath the earth."

Johnson, concentrated on the movement of the scarab, replied, "Yeah, well if anything hostile is down there, we'll just have to kick its sorry ass."

The group nodded in agreement as the monitor flew into the scarab to give the pilots directions while drilling. Arching itself face down using its legs to create a thirty degree angle to the ground, the front drill began to whirl until its rotating velocity caused it to hum. Propelling the body downwards, the drill bit caught into the dry, desolate earth and quickly began to chew through the dirt. As the body began to dig deeper and deeper, the legs began to retract and circle around the main body. Within moments, the great machine disappeared only leaving a great gaping hole in the ground.

The vibration from the drilling scarab slowly disappeared and silence covered the landscape. The dark blooms of smoke and dust continued to rise from the destroyed city in the distant horizon. After a thirty minute wait, the Arbiter received the signal from the scarab that they were almost to their final destination.

The thought of the pelicans came to Johnson's mind after overhearing the message and he looked towards the sky. Sure enough, five aircraft enclosed on their location and rapidly approached. Moments later, the pelicans touched down with their compartment bays loaded to the brim with thick steel pillars.

Ordering the marines to get to work, Johnson hollered, "Alright gentlemen. Help load these pillars onto the construction vehicles and lets get this over with. Lets go! Double time!"

The marines quickly raced about encircling fabric to the steel rods so that the miniature cranes could lift them out. As the materials were unloaded, John led the way into the tunnel in front of the machinery. Cortana, using the Chief's advanced sensory equipment in his helmet, quickly analyzed potential points of weakness that needed the metal support. Sounds of metal clanking upon metal and the hissing of steel being smelted together began to fill the tunnel. As each joint was secured, the whole assault team moved step by step closer to the end where the scarab lay waiting.

The task was slow and daunting, but finally after an extra hour and a half of work, the tunnel was perfectly stable and the whole team made it to the base of the drilled shaft. In front of them lay a large, hollowed out tavern. Thanks only to the great illumination of the scarab's forward lights, the sight of a large forerunner complex lay a football field's length away. Brown and covered with dust, it was obvious that the structure hadn't been used for a very long time.

Adam let out another one his impressing whistles of amazement and the jaws of the entire party dropped at the sight of the great structure. Master Chief activated his front flashlights and the marines behind him activated theirs in turn. While the exiled covenant lacked actual flashlights, they each pulled out small crystalline objects and attached them the center armor plate causing a bright glow similar to the human flashlights. They marched forward in the dim quietness, the sight of dozens of individual lights reflecting off both the stone walls and great structure in front of them.

A faint glow began to come towards them from the forerunner structure and the party raised their weapons bracing for an attack. However, the excited voice of the monitor rang through the silence.

"Yes, this is most certainly the ark! Hahahaha, I am great aren't I? Come, come! This way now! I can activate the door and we can enter where no one has stepped for nearly one hundred thousand years!"

The marines and elite teams moved ever closer to the structure and cautiously made their way to the door. One of the marines behind Johnson nervously said, "Sarge, I have a bad feeling about this."

Talking over his shoulder, the brave sergeant replied, "Edwards, you always have a bad feeling about whatever. Zip it and concentrate."

Minutes passed and they finally made it to the front door. The entrance to the complex turned out to be a massive, metallic, two piece doorway tightly shut down. Looking for some method of opening them, the Arbiter inquired the monitor, "Oracle, how do we get in?"

Proudly replying, "Leave that to me!" 343 guilty Spark flew down to eye level and sent a blue electric signal through a section of the far left door. For a moment, nothing happened and the team began to look around with a nervous anxiety. Suddenly, the faintest creak could be heard, and the following and more audible noises of dirty gears turning on each other signaled the opening of the great doors.

Everyone watched in awe as the two ornate metal slabs separated revealing a great dark hallway. The murky darkness was like a thick soup and it greedily absorbed every photon of light that struck it. Even with the combination of dozens of lights, the party could not clearly see anything further than five yards in front of them.

Private Edwards again complained, "Sarge, I told you, I have a really bad feeling about this."

Johnson, irritated at the marine's lack of guts turned around and grasped him by the shoulder. "Marine, did I give you permission to bitch? I don't think so! Next time you complain, I'm going to have the chief boot your ass right through that ceiling of rock right back to the pelicans where you can shit your pants and cry to your mama. Now focus, dammit!" However, the marine's feelings were beginning to grow in Johnson's gut as well. Something didn't feel right and the well trained hairs on the back of his neck agreed with him.

Turning around to see what the fuss was, the Arbiter and John turned around. They saw Johnson reprimand the nervous marine, but he wasn't the only one showing signs of strained nerves. Many of the grunts huddled around together and even the elites and hunters stood at a very cautious pose nervously twitching this way and that at the slightest sound.

Inside of his helmet, Cortana commented to the Chief, "Something tells me this isn't going to be as easy as I thought."

Looking at the Arbiter, John nodded and took a step into the temple with the elite right at his side. Both had seen very intense combat with the flood, about the most gruesome and horrific combat imaginable. Through the numerous engagements with the flood and fighting back their surprise ambushes, both of them had honed senses giving a type of supernatural ability to detect where flood forms right be. The nod from the Master Chief only agreed with the one fear in the elite's own mind. The flood was here.

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Deep in the blackness of space, the great escape pod from the destroyed city of High Charity approached its destination. Although the insides of the pod were quite spacious, spacious enough for a prophet, Gravemind growled in discomfort as his large body lay packed together inside of the craft. With only moments left before the Arbiter detonated the antimatter bomb, he had managed concentrate a great deal of his strength and power to teleport himself to the shuttle bay. Thanks to the great powers that coursed through his veins, Gravemind had the limited ability to bend space and time similar to that on the teleportation grids on the halos.

Launching just before the detonation consumed his escape ship, Gravemind managed to escape the primary blast. However, to survive the shockwave, he was forced to exert the rest of his power to augment the already present shielding. Both emergency procedures caused him to deplete an incredible amount of energy and he was forced to fall into unconsciousness while his powerful essence, in a literal sense, recharged.

Still feeling the weariness throughout his great body, it took the parasite a moment to realize why he had awoken before being fully revived. Then it hit him. The images of the long past war blazed through his eyes and he realized what had caused him to stir from his rest. The general was awoken from his rest in the ark. Someone had released him from his sleep, and that meant that someone had opened the great doors.

Groaning in deep thought, Gravemind carefully retraced the distant events of the long forgotten history. The forerunners were losing the war against his armies and were desperate to contain him. Their last option for success lay in activating their ark, the central control center he was not aware of until it was almost too late.

The images continued. Gravemind saw himself in his throne and sucking the delicious bodily sustenance from the corpses of the dead. Several rings were under his control and his forces were nearly ready to capture the rest. The forerunner had lost and the galaxy was his. But it wasn't truly so. They had one last way to defeat him. The ark.

Through the mind of a forerunner general, Gravemind was brought to light about the ark. He sent his own general, a flood form of power only beneath his own, with a great army to beat the forerunner to this facility and solidify his control once and for all. Through the eyes of the flood general, he watched as his fleet entered the planet's gravity field only to find nothing. The ships, soon to be useless to him through unconditional victory, were emptied and the flood army in entirety was deployed on the planet to secure the surface station. But that was the one mistake that cost Gravemind the war.

With the entire flood force on Earth, the forerunners sneaked around and flanked the abandoned fleet from behind the planet's moon. They destroyed the ships and bombarded the drop zones to near oblivion, eradicating the flood armies with one swift blow. However, the general flood form survived and Gravemind watched through its eyes as a forerunner strike team landed on the surface. He commanded his minion to follow behind, stalking the forerunners until they made it to the ark.

The tactic worked well. Gravemind watched as his general approached the great structure, safely behind the forward enemy. He followed the forerunners into the complex, through many dark and empty corridors, until they arrived at last to the control center within.

Ready to make the ultimate sacrifice to contain the parasite armies, the forerunners prepared to activate the halos through the ark. As they prepared the firing sequence, the general attacked. His great body, masses of hardened flesh, coupled with great, razor sharp sword projections on his arms, was nearly invulnerable coupled with the great shield generator used by the once powerful forerunner's body. With a great whip like motion, Gravemind watched as his general tore three of the forerunners in half in one fluid motion. The others prepared to fire, but the flood form picked up one of the rifles and bounded into the darkness surrounding the chamber. Firing into the dark abyss surrounding them, the forerunners desperately attempted to hit the fiend, but it was to no avail. Stealthily, yet quickly, the general flanked them, opened fire, and eliminated the four remaining forerunners. Their carcasses belched smoke and blood from their great wounds.

Gravemind watched through the eyes of his general with delight. Victory was finally his. As the general turned around to leave, the one of the forerunners, with his last ounce of strength, reached up and hit the primed activation button on the control panel. The structure shook, and the signal was sent to the halos. In a flash of godly fury, the halos fired their weapons. The great wave of sheer power destroyed what was meant to die. The flood would now starve as they were fated to do.

Faced with no other options, Gravemind allowed much of his armies to degrade and rot into oblivion. Through the halos he controlled, Gravemind ordered groups of flood to hide inside of the structure, feeding off of the forerunner sustenance provided until other beings arrived. He, himself, went into hiding, suffering alone and waiting for the day when control of the galaxy would finally be his. But now he had to wait. There was no longer anything he knew of for his armies to feed from, to grow from. They would starve and he would hunger for revenge until the time came.

The parasite leader commanded his great general to hibernate inside the single cryochamber and sleep, sleep until new pray came. After one hundred thousand years, the moment had arrived. The doors had once again been opened. His general would awaken and pained by great hunger, all in his way would parish like those before him. Gravemind laughed. His armies were growing despite the loss of High Charity, and soon, a captured ship would arrive for him and take him to where he needed to go.

_Soon, all will once again join me in the darkness and suffering, and this time, the galaxy will be mine! _

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The Arbiter and Master Chief led the large team into the temple. Both warriors stood at constant guard; they each sensed the presence of the great and powerful enemy deep inside of the structure. The entrance way appeared to be safe, but there was danger inside, none the less.

The rush of fresh air into the forerunner complex forced the release of the ancient and stale inside of the structure. Covenant and human forces alike coughed and wheezed as the overwhelming force of the air engulfed them all. It took a moment for them to recover and continue their march into the ancient structure.

As they eyes of the company adjusted to the murky darkness, they began to slowly see more and more around them. The first chamber they walked into was crafted of an unknown metal alloy that seemed to absorb all light that touched it. To the far end of the chamber, an entrance way loomed ahead, leading even further into the darkness.

Johnson angrily muttered, "Hey Tinkerbelle, you think you can somehow turn on the lights?"

Guilty Spark hummed to himself for a moment before replying. "Let me see, yes, there are light structures built into the ceiling, but it looks like in the haste they constructed this facility, lighting was of their last priority. Let me see what I can do."

The monitor's glowing blue hue pulsated into the darkness ahead before quickly disappearing. Undaunted by the spooky feel around them, John and the Arbiter continued leading their unit into the second chamber.

Entering the second chamber, Cortana immediately recognized the situation and sighed, "Well, this can't be good."

Presented to them was a fork of sorts in the road. Three pathways spread out before them, one to the left, one to the right, and one down the center.

The Arbiter looked over at the Master Chief and inquired, "Demon, do you have any idea where to go?"

Answering slowly, John replied, "No, but I bet Cortana might have an idea."

As if upon request, she searched back upon the data she collected while in Alpha Halo's computer core and searched for any possible clues.

"Um Chief, from what I tell, if the forerunners built this structure similar to their halos, the path to the right should be the correct one. Yeah, I'm pretty confident on this one."

John relayed the message and they pressed on down the right pathway.

As if complying Cortana's correct decision, a great and powerful howl echoed from the pathway and sent shivers down to the very soul of each marine and exiled covenant. Some of the marines moaned in horror and several of the grunts cried out in sheer terror. While the commanding officers attempted to suppress the fears at great difficulty, Sergeant Johnson simply popped a lit cigar into his mouth and undid the safety on his BR55 while his dark eyes focused far into the darkness.

"Chief, some of me, well, most of me does not want to find out what made that terrible noise," Cortana whispered with an obvious tone of dread herself.

The Spartan muttered back, "Well, that makes two of us then. Let me know if you notice anything."

Trained to handle any situation, John wasn't as affected by the great cry far ahead of them. The Arbiter, as well, was able to resist the general urge to run away. He muttered a prayer to his ancestral guardian and prepared to press further. The Spartan followed at his side.

As they slowly crept along, Johnson looked up at the dark ceiling above them and angrily said, "When will that damn light bulb turn on the lights so that we can see a thing or two?"

Johnson's question was answered as the Chief raised his hand, signaling a halt. They had entered the third great chamber, and this one appeared larger than the rest. Slowly ordering for the rest of the party to file in, the search team trickled into the chamber forming a type of bloom around the doorway. With their lights posed at the darkness around them, each soldier strained their eyes trying to discern any possible threats. The silence around them was nerve wrecking and the thick darkness only heightened their fears.

John looked down at the weapon in his arm and noticed that the weapon was primed and ready to fire. Adam was a few ranks behind him and was comfortably surrounded on all sides by marines, elites, and grunts. However, just as John looked back up and faced the darkness ahead of him, something caught his sensitive ears – movement ahead. He raised his weapon and searched for the source of the sound, but silence again prevailed.

The black eyes of the flood general surveyed the sight of the search party. Their lighting foolishly gave away their structure, allowing the intelligent creature to find weaknesses. His stomach ached for the flesh of the living and his mind pulsated for the feel of fresh, warm blood gushing down his throat. It had been too long without food, he needed to feed now, and he wasn't going to stop until he crunched on the bones of each one of them. Finding the perfect target, he attacked.

The soft padded sound of fleshy feet pushing against the ground keyed the Spartan's acute hearing of the movement. To his far left, the cry of absolute terror inundated the room as the great flood form landed on top of an elite. Its great sword like projections cut through the creature's shielding and flesh like a hot knife through butter and the elite fell into three neatly cleaved slices. Grabbing a helpless marine, the general turned around and prepared to escape back into the darkness.

The instant the first cries were emitted from the frightened soldiers, numerous flashlights focused on the parasite general and several heavy weapons opened up their fury of ammunition. Plasma and bullets alike hit the creature and dropped harmlessly off the creature's shielding. The shields, full of life and power, halted the rain of fire several inches from the parasite's body. Continuing his work, he escaped with the marine into the darkness. The soldier cried out a few last times before a sickening crunch silenced him.

Panic overwhelmed the team and the those in the very front frantically shoved backwards desperately trying to escape. Using the pandemonium to his advantage, the general attacked again and dragged off a hapless hunter which swatted the beast with its large metal shield to no effect. The parasite only latched onto the armor and ripped it off the hunter. Sinking its teeth into the unprotected flesh, the general indulged in the sweet taste of victory.

Amid the hysteria, Johnson yelled amid the din, "God dammit people, form up! We can still take this thing down!"

John paid little attention to any of the team around him and focused on trying to get a good shot at the creature.

The Arbiter, with all his might, worked with the sergeant in calming down the soldiers so that they could fight back against the terrible beast. His respect for the marine continued to grow as he watched the fearless human combat against near impossible odds trying to calm down his own soldiers.

Fighting the flood in one on one combat many a time, the white elite, Half-Jaw, joined up with the Chief and pulled out his energy sword. The hiss of the concentrated plasma coming to life attracted the attention of the parasite general as he prepared for his third run against his prey. Leaping a great distance into the air, he laid himself on a trajectory to land right onto the foolish elite.

Noticing the slight movement above them, Cortana hollered to John, "Chief, above you, he's coming down on the elite!"

Moving in one quick and fluid motion, John caught glimpse of the creature nearly twenty feet above them through the random waving motions of marine flashlights. As his own high powered lighting honed in on the parasite, John pulled the trigger.

The flare of a yellow light distracted the parasite general just long enough for him to realize his mistake. Next to the elite, he noticed with dread inside of him, was what looked like a relcaimer – the best warriors of the forerunner. Before he had time to think about how one could have survived for so long, the yellow pulse slammed into him. A flash of light blinded him and he could feel his breath knocked out of his lungs. His posture fell apart as he free fell the remaining distance towards the white armored elite.

Losing his ability to slash at Half-Jaw, the general only managed to raise his striking arm partially above him. The highly trained elite caught notice of the flood form falling down upon him and smoothly arched his great blade above his body as he dodged the creature's decent. The blade cut deep inside of the parasite's shield less belly and the vaporization of organs and flesh steamed out of the wound.

Feeling his strength weakening, the flood form attempted to get up, but only felt a stabbing pain as Half-Jaw's energy sword finished the sweeping arc with a picturesque finish straight down into the general's neck. Pulling with all his strength, the elite ripped his sword through the back of the parasite's head. Yanking the sword out with a sharp jerk, the thick gash where the energy sword had traveled revealed the blackened scaring of fried flesh, bone, and brain. The parasite general lay dead in front of them, the threat neutralized.

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Gravemind lost his telekinetic link with the great flood general. He howled in rage and despair. He had lost control of the ark just as he had failed to secure it one hundred thousand years ago. Looking through his front view screen, the giant creature watched as a captured Covenant CSS-Class battleship exited slip space in front of him. There was much work for the parasite king to do if he was to again near victory.

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**Author's Notes: **Weeoo, I hope that this chapter was as fun for you all to read as it was for me to write it. This is only the prelude to a great unraveling of theoretical answers as the pieces of the halo mysteries fall together. Be prepared to see the Prophet of Truth in the next chapter or so as well as the release of more information towards solving the great puzzle. Thanks again for reading and please let me know what you all think! (P.S. I just noticed the similarities to that of the AVP setting as I edited the entry, but I assure you, the movie was not on my mind when I first crafted this chapter)


	7. History Lesson

History Lesson

The corpse of the dead parasite lay smoldering at the feet of Half-Jaw. The elite stood tall, breathing deeply after exerting the enormous amount of energy required to execute his poetic maneuver. Flashlights glowed down upon the body and everyone stood in a nervous silence, anticipating another attack. However, none came.

Relaxing his pose, Sergeant Johnson looked around at the darkness and mumbled under his breath, "Now that the danger is gone, I bet that floating light bulb will finally turn on the lig…"

An audible click was heard just before Johnson finished his aside. The darkness was suddenly vanquished by a very welcoming glow from the top ceiling panels. Guilty Spark hummed down from a small opening far above the far wall and joined the group.

"I trust all has been well. I finally determined how to activate the lighting fixtures and let me tell you, it was much simpler than you could ever imagine. In fact-" A sharp ping resonated throughout the large chamber and the monitor, complete distracted, yelled out in alarm, "Help! I'm under attack!"

Johnson was glaring at the monitor with an obvious scowl on his face. He had picked up an empty BR55 cartridge and hurled it at the machine in disgust. While the oracle searched for the threat, the sergeant muttered, "That's right, you little bastard."

Searching around and finding nothing, the oracle calmed itself and took a pause to focus on its original thoughts. "As I was about to say, the control room to this facility is in the next chamber. I am very eager to enter and sequence all of the data stored in the mainframe! Who knows what we will discover?"

Looking at the Master Chief, the Arbiter asked, "Ready to move on?"

John smoothly cocked the rifle across his shoulder and faced the elite. "Yes, lets."

With the feeling of control over their current situation, the party moved on at a slightly quicker pace. As the troops passed the dead parasite, several of the marines decided to spit on it. A passing grunt watched and decided to try for itself. Leaning back, collecting his breath just as he watched the marines do, the grunt shot forward and made a wet 'splat'. It shrieked aloud realizing that its inner facemask was now completely covered in sticky blue goo. A group of marines nearby chuckled to themselves and some of the elites just shook their heads.

Due to the sheer size of the chamber and the still cautious approach, it took the team several minutes to completely transverse the room. As they reached the far end, Cortana whispered inside of the helmet, "Chief, I wonder what these huge chambers were made for." She paused for a moment and continued, "Wait, are those warthogs I'm hearing?"

Sure enough, the roaring engines of a half dozen warthogs grew louder. Looking back the way they came, the team listened to the sounds continue to grow. From the high pitched cries of the engines, the vehicles sounded as if they were pushing their engines to the max. White beams could be seen coming from the powerful front headlights. The warthog entering last ran over the corpse of the general with a sickening squish, but the engines easily blanked the sound.

Jumping down from the lead hog, Miranda Keyes raced over to the search team. "Are you alright? We received an emergency beacon from one of the team leaders."

Sergeant Johnson was the first to reply as he pointed behind her. "Yeah, we ran into ugly back there but luckily the Chief and that white elite managed to take care of him. If you wish to stay, 'mam, we're about ready to enter the control room."

Sending a new command back to the drivers, Commander Keyes ordered, "Marines, stay at your present position and we'll signal if there is a need for a quick evac or reinforcements."

All six drivers hollered in together, "Yes 'mam!" and put their engines on standby.

Impatiently humming above them, 343 Guilty Spark quickly flew over to the door at the end of the chamber. It didn't take long for the rest of the party to approach, and with the command from Keyes, the monitor accessed a control panel to the right side of the large doorway. Two triangles, inversely attached making a diamond on the center of the door, lit up and the door way opened revealing an ancient yet superiorly advanced control room. To the far left of the room lay an open hatchway with the cryo-tube that the flood form had used. Directly in front of them lay another sealed door and to the right stood an array of glowing holographic control modules.

The monitor gave a cry of child like joy. It raced into the room ahead of John and the Arbiter and sat itself in front of the controls. However, its happiness was quickly torn down. After several attempts to connect with the ark's network, which resulted in failure each time, Guilty Spark hovered back to the approaching party. It uttered sullenly, "There are security encryptions on it I can not terminate. I can not get into the system. How odd."

Whispering inside his helmet, John inquired, "Cortana, think you can crack it?"

She proudly replied, "Well, let me put it this way. Me not being able to crack this system has the equivalent odds saying that I'd kiss a brute."

John gave half a grin inside of his helmet and pulled out Cortana's data chip. He smoothly walked over to the holo display panels and placed the chip onto the holographic insertion pad. Cortana's essence was instantly infused with the ark's computer mainframe. Rushing through the data streams, she came up to the controls and smacked up against a solid firewall as she tried to enter. All attempts to crack the encryptions failed and she returned to the data chip. The glow of the chip signaled that she was ready to leave and John loaded her back into his own system.

"Damn, no luck. Sorry Chief."

John, in his classic apathetic tone replied, "I'll remember that when we run into another brute."

Cortana grumbled something to him that he didn't understand, but he didn't press the issue. The obvious signs of trouble were apparent to the Arbiter and he questioned the leaders around him, "So how do we gain access to this construct?"

Adam had stood comfortably protected in the middle of group during the whole exploration of the ark. Even during the attack, he reluctantly fell back. There was some kind of presence that drew him closer and closer to the control room, to the holo modules. Unconsciously, he squeezed by two elites and walked up to the controls. Everyone looked at him with curiosity while his eyes remained glued, unblinking, at the controls. The voice inside of his head was speaking to him again, guiding his actions, and showing him what to do.

_Unlock the secrets of this place, show all the fate we suffered, the dangers of the flood … show them us, the forerunners. _

With skills that'd make Cortana blush, Adam's hands rushed about as he punched in several long commands on the holograms. His efforts paid off as a great light filled the center of the chamber. The whole group turned around and their jaws hit the floor.

Standing tall on a glowing white pedestal, four figures in brilliant white body armor with golden insignias beautifully drawn throughout looked at the ark's new guests. The greatest shock, however, was the striking resemblance of the four white armored images. One looked almost identical to the Master Chief, one like an elite, one like a grunt, and one like a hunter.

The Spartan look-a-like was the first to speak. In a great voice which filled the chamber with a deep, strong sound, it greeted the party. "Welcome to the ark! Long have we waited for you. The time has come for you to fulfill your destiny."

The Arbiter stepped up to the front ranks. "What destiny is this which you speak of?"

Stepping up with the human warrior, the black clad elite stood tall and answered, "It is good to see that the elites, grunts, and hunters have once again joined the proper alliance with humanity rather than the prophets and their filth. Your destiny is to eliminate the flood once and for all. You are to reclaim the universe from our mistake, to return the galaxy to the glory that it used to be. But to learn how to win this fight, you must learn from our own mistakes, mistakes that doomed our great civilization."

The images of the four forerunner soldiers disappeared and the voice of the human echoed throughout the chamber. "You will learn all you need to know from our past. With our past, you will control the future."

The room grew quiet and the great glowing pedestal began to slowly enclose on itself. Before anyone could react, the shrinking ball of light exploded in a flash of white fury knocking every living thing in the chamber unconscious. As their bodies lay motionless, mysterious forces entered their minds as they began to enter the realm that was once dominated by the great and ancient forerunners.

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The Prophet of Truth slowly came to and his head throbbed of a pain he had never before felt. His thick chin hair lay flattened against his right arm and his once beautiful red robes were scarred by plasma burns and the blood of both the brutes and his own. As his eyes slowly became adjusted to the dim lighting, he recognized that he was lying down upon a rough bed inside a rather small cell. Strong metal bars lined the one opening across from him and the remainder of the cell was made of firm concrete. The dreary and drab environment was anything but ordinary compared to his previous life of indulged luxury to an unimaginable scale.

He instinctively rolled off of the bed expecting to hover off the ground in his own platform, but he was rudely brought to light as his bare feet touched upon the cold floor. Ages of neglect on his legs caused them to be little else but bone and flesh, completely incapable of supporting anymore than a kilogram of weight. His body quickly crumpled upon his pathetically built body and he squirmed for a moment in confused agony.

Realizing that anymore attempts were futile, Truth slowly traced his steps backwards to the last thing he remembered. He was on the forerunner ship and had just left High Charity. The flood had stolen the human vessel and stormed the city, quickly growing in strength from the numerous corpses from the civil war. Truth remembered boarding upon a phantom to leave the city and watching his brother sub-come to the infectious form without the feeling of either pity or remorse. The battle outside of the city was ferocious. Elite and brute controlled ships were engaging each other and fighting to the death. It was that fleet which he had hoped to bring with him to Earth and augment the already hundreds of additional forces which had arrived. By the time the brutes finally had control, the remnants weren't worth bringing. The elites were incompetent. They couldn't defend one of the scared rings, they couldn't protect their prophets. They were useless and disserved to die.

His thoughts panned back to when he entered Earth's system. To his dismay, much of their defenses lay intact and the fight was going to be much tougher than he thought. Then came the warning signal. Truth clenched is teeth together in anger realizing that it was the demon on the ship, and he had been to preoccupied in his own ego and glory to even bother to notice. The prisoners on his ship were to be a distraction. The humans were to go after them while he entered the ark unnoticed. But why hadn't the plan worked? A flash of green flooded Truth's vision and he remembered. The pain in his forehead erupted as he watched the demon slam his fist into the front of his skull. Truth's memory ended there, and looking about, there were no signs indicating where he was being captive. He assumed somewhere among those filthy humans, somewhere on that planet that should have been burning into glass at this very moment.

_Curse those vile creatures, curse them! Look what they have reduced me to, the Prophet of Truth! _

Far down the dark hallway, the sound of a security door rushing open distracted the Prophet from his busy thoughts. The sounds of heavy footsteps rang down the passage way and the click of metal upon stone caused his headache to throb each time the sounds resonated through his head.

Two distinct human voices could be heard. One was young while the other was much colder.

"Is the vile worm in there?" the cold voice said.

"Yes sir, Cell B-3," responded the other.

"Very good. Leave us now."

"Sir!"

The conversation stopped and Truth could hear the sound of a pair of feet walking away from him as the echo of its steps grew quieter and quieter by second. The security door hissed shut and silence filled the area. The prophet felt a drop of liquid fall down his cheek and raised his hand to feel it. The single drop dispersed on his finger. It was his own sweat and was something he hadn't felt for millennia.

The sound of firm and calculating food steps suddenly began their slow march towards his cell. His head continued to throb from the sharp sounds, but the feeling of dread quickly grew in his heart. A flashback of a meeting decades ago now flooded his vision and his memory began to replay the very events …

---------------------------------------------------------

It was a typical day on High Charity. The politics with the high council bored Truth to death, like usual, and he wished to get rid of it all.

_Rubbish, I am the power of the Covenant. Not that rabble they call a council. Without me, they would be powerless and collapse on a whim. How dare they act as if they hold influence over the true authority!_

While floating off and preparing to preach another sermon with his brothers, an honor guard had approached. The unorthodox behavior caught him off guard and during normal circumstances, he would have made an example of it. But then again, this was not ordinary. The honor guard bowed respectively.

"Most holy hierarch, an unidentified ship has been detected on the far side of the planet."

His thoughts of punishment quickly disappeared. "Send them our blessing. I would wish to speak with the one in command."

"Your will is my command, holy one."

Truth hovered to the chamber housing his two brothers as they preached a sermon while his own mind raced with possibilities. It had been millennia since any new race had been contacted. Even he had thought that all intelligent life had already been found and assimilated into the Covenant.

_If they are due in their respect and obey our sermon, then they too shall be graced by the Great Journey._

The doors in front of Truth lit up in the center and slowly slid open. Mercy and Regret were hovering in the middle of a great round platform and were finishing up their sermon.

"… and with the grace and blessing of your beloved prophets, you may worthy enough to meet your ancestors on the Great Journey."

Their sermon done, Mercy and Regret turned their attention to Truth and the lone grunt working the camera obediently hopped off the platform, bowed respectively to the prophets, and marched out of the chamber. Truth cleared his throat and was the first to speak.

"Brothers, I come with tidings in this uncertain time. It appears our Covenant is not as whole as we wished."

"What do you mean by this? Throughout the ages, we have brought together all those worthy enough to join us on the Great Journey!" Mercy exclaimed.

"It has just been brought to my attention that an unknown vessel has ventured upon our space. It may be best for all of us to meet this unknown race and see if they, too, are worthy enough to join us."

Regret responded as he began to move towards the exit, "Then it is settled. With proper grace and respect, let us meet them."

Moving through a narrow passageway and then traveling up a great distance on the nearest lift, the three prophets entered the communications chamber. The honor guard who had initially given word to Truth humbly walked over to them and respectfully bowed.

"Most noble ones, the foreign ship has just hailed us. We're establishing a connection now."

A brief pause ensued but the video link came to life. A man in a dark uniform stood tall and proud front and center. His young features and the numerous stripes and metals indicated that he was an exceptional soldier for achievement at such an age. The human's mouth moved but Truth couldn't hear what he said. The very fabric of reality around the prophet began to spin and he came back to in the dark prison cell. A man in a dark uniform stood in front of him. Truth's eyes opened wide as he snapped back into reality. Fear throbbed through his heart as the soldier introduced himself.

Truth gasped in terror. _It's him!_

---------------------------------------------------------

Master Chief's eyes slowly opened up and he looked around in disbelief and surprise. The last thing he remembered was the blinding flash of light inside of the ark's control center. Shaking his head to get the stars out, he slowly stood up with the rest of the group slowly coming to.

Cortana groggily whispered into the headset, "Chief, is it just me or did it feel like we took a hit by a sledgehammer?"

John abruptly responded, "I don't know." Gazing at the new room they were all in, he continued, "But I would sure like to know where we are right now."

Johnson and the Arbiter walked over to the Chief and gazed at the busy motion whirling clouds and shapes surrounding them. A thick mist flowed around their knees and blanketed the floor. Rubbing the back of his head, Johnson muttered, "Man, not even my ex-girlfriend smacked me upside the head that hard."

Johnson couldn't hear it, but two of the waking marines overheard him. One looked at the other and commented, "Hear that? We'll save that one for later!"

As the rest of the group finally woke up, the shapes and figures around them finally began to take form. The whirling images settled down into the shape of a large control room, most likely the bridge, on a great forerunner battleship. Grunt, elites, and humans milled about the various posts fulfilling their respective duties and a pair of hunters stood at attention by the main doors. Each creature wore whitened armor, but the degree of decorations of gold, silver, and copper on the armor seemed to indicate their rank. Most of the grunts had a lone copper strike flashing down their chest, back, and arms while several of the humans, elites, and hunters had multiple bands of beautifully woven colors.

An elite, by far decorated the most, stood on a raised platform and surveyed the displays around him. Through the crystal clear displays covering the far side of the bridge, the sight of dozens of triangular forerunner capital ships and hundreds of smaller crafts flew about. Towards the bottom right corner of the viewing window, a great planet floated in the space. Its night-time face showed the glow of billions of lights and each sparkled like the reflection of light from the facet of a diamond.

Johnson cautiously walked to one of the passing humans asking, "Hey you, soldier, where the hell are we?" The human didn't respond. Noticing a few silver strips on his armor, he didn't know whether to salute or not. Shrugging his shoulders, he just stuck his arm out and attempted to push the human's shoulder. To his surprise and dismay, his hand passed right through the humans' body.

"We must be in some event of the forerunner's past. It's just like watching a dream, all we can do is sit back and enjoy the show," Miranda sighed.

Suddenly, a small blip of light flashed on one of the commander's displays. It barked an out an order to a grunt with two copper streaks on its armor. "Report!"

In its characteristic high pitched voice, the grunt replied, "Captain! Scans report disturbance far side of planet! Me think it's a slip space channel!"

The grunt was correct. A white light appeared far into the distance and a large, dark gray, diamond shaped ship exited slip-space.

The ship's personal A.I., with a female voice, gave the scan and diagnostics of the newly arrived ship. "Captain, this ship is of an unknown class but its weaponry and shielding are nearly identical to ours. Sir, it's hailing us!"

"Put it up," ordered the elite.

An empty holographic screen to the right of the elite flashed to life but a very dark image greeted him.

Clearing his throat, the elite warmly greeted the guest. "Welcome to Klitharia! I am the commander of this planet's fleet, and I wish you tidings and good will. Is there anything I may do for you?"

John and the rest of his group squinted to see who or what was in the display image. Even Cortana struggled to get a good look.

Although none of them could get a good look at the strange guest, they could all clearly hear its response.

In a dark, dreary, and chilling voice, it slowly responded, "Die…"

The elite captain took a step back in shock and the holographic display disappeared. A high ranking human hollered aloud, "Sir, they're firing their weapons!"

Four bursts of static light ran forth from the alien ship and contacted the nearest forerunner capital ship. Three of the energy beams hit the bluish aura of the activated shielding which absorbed the wave of ions, but the fourth passed through the weakened shielding and hit the engine cores. Explosions rocked the forerunner ship and it floated in space, disabled and tactically dead.

The captain punched a command on his command display and ordered, "Get the fleet into combat status! Discharge all ion cannons on the enemy ship!"

Other elites, grunts, and humans all ran to their battle stations and in a display of efficient mobilization, the remaining capital ships opened up their duel ion cannons on the enemy vessel seconds later. The first six blasts were enough to rip the enemy ship's shields and hull to shreds, but the remaining bursts of charged ionic rays made sure to decimate the alien craft and crew into the very basic fabric of atoms. When the light dispersed, there was nothing left of where the alien ship was except for the blackness of space.

"Send word throughout the galaxy that we're at war with an unknown foe. I want to speak with High Command immediately!" the elite hollered.

His crew obediently followed the orders and seconds later, the captain was face to face with the four soldiers that greeted John and his team back on the ark.

"Generals, we were just attacked by an unidentified and unknown ship with technology similar to ours. I lost one of my Beta class battleships during the battle. Sending you the audio logs and video relays as we …. for the love of God …"

The elite general responded urgently, "Captain, what is it? Respond!"

But the captain couldn't muster the air needed to reply. Its mandibles hung loosely and its body went limp. The very stars in front of him seemed to transform into the alien crafts. Thousands upon thousands of the enemy ships enclosed on the planet's position and the foremost opened fire as they got in range.

The first wave of ion fire obliterated the entire front line of forerunner vessels. Bright red explosions engulfed many of their vessels, but the remaining managed to counterattack. Several of the alien crafts were destroyed, but hundreds replaced their fallen comrades. Hopelessly outnumbered and out-gunned, the forerunner fleet guarding Klitharia disappeared only to be remembered by history itself. As the glimpse of the past began to fade back into the shrouds of the unknown, Master Chief and all those around him managed to catch one last glimpse of the terrible nightmare. As the enormous fleet opened fire on Klitharia, the great discharge of ionic weaponry caused the surface to erupt in great wisps of ionized flame. The beautiful and sparkling lights and cities of the planet were instantly engulfed by the unrelenting wave of fire and energy leaving nothing but blackened earth in its wake.

John lunged forward reaching out with his arm to help the ailing planet but it was to no avail. The whole party was surrounded by the obscure and vague shrouds of the unknown. Behind John, several of the newer marines had tears fall down their cheeks after watching the extermination taken place. Even the battle hardened elites stood motionless and numb to the tragedy before them.

Johnson, his mouth agape, couldn't say anything but, "Well I'll be damned."

Inside their sphere of swirling shapes and figures and blanketing mist, the voice of the original forerunner human boomed out at them.

_You have seen our malevolent foe. Now you will see our solution. _

The swirling shapes surrounding them began to slowly take form again. To John's far right, a long purple carpet ran from a large doorway all the way to a glowing table in the middle of a great and spacious chamber. The holographic images of forerunner controlled space orbited far above the central table. The Chief heard Cortana mumble something about that being the Milky Way but his attention was focused on the four dazzlingly decorated armored soldiers sitting around the table deep in discussion. They were the four that greeted them in the ark.

The human began, "Analysis of their primary computer system is complete. The best that I can tell, our enemy is foreign to this galaxy."

Grinding his fist in frustration, the elite inquired, "Then we must determine where they are from and why they're intent on exterminating us!"

Punching in a command into the holograms on the center table, the grunt pointed up to the holographic display of the galaxy above them. "See there! We lose a whole quarter of our territory! We must combine all remaining fleets to fight big meanies. It is only way."

The hunter roared audibly and the computer translated. "Let us board their ships! We will grind them into dust!"

With a stern expression, the elite replied to the hunter's idea. "Then I guess you forgot watching your comrades fall to their ion rifles back on Polantus IV. They are just as strong at repelling boarders as we are."

"We were surrounded and already weakened from battle! We lasted longer than your units," the hunter roared back.

"Don't be stupid, let grunt special ops take out bad fleet!" the grunt squeaked out above them.

The elite, grunt, and hunter began to raise their voices to press their opinions, but the human raised his hands gesturing for silence. "Brothers, there may be hope left for us. This new strategy is impregnable." He punched a command onto his display board and a video clip played about the four of them. "Experiment A-104 has exceeded all expected results. The gene manipulation tests have led to development in the best soldiers the universe has ever seen. Through the mind of one of utmost loyalty, he'll use parasites to revive the dead! These, the infectious forms, will attack and chew through the enemy armor inserting their DNA into the host. The host will become incapacitated only to transform in a brief amount of time into a loyal, undefeatable soldier! Preliminary tests show enemy ion weaponry is only thirty percent effective against them."

The video showed the small infection form attacking its host and biting down into its neck. While the host screamed in agony, the form injected its DNA into the back of its spine. Seconds passed and the body and limbs began to transform into the combat forms that the exiled covenant and marines had feared the most.

The party, passively watching, gasped in disbelief at the events taking place before them. Marines, elites, and grunts all looked blankly at each other. None of them would have predicted how the flood had come to be.

The black armored elite inquisitively watched the videos and looked at the human. "But tell me, how do we know these beasts shall not turn onto their masters."

"Ahh, a good question. The DNA of these soldiers allow for rapid regeneration of cellular damage. But this trait comes at a deep cost. They must feed and feed often to have the biomass needed to sustain them. When they've destroyed our great enemy, we can herd them, starve them if necessary, and quickly control their numbers. I have nominated the Vice Admiral Trejak of the core fleet to become the gravemind. His devout loyalty to our civilization has been proven more frequently than any other. He will remain obedient to our command and will control these new soldiers. Brothers, we shall have victory!"

All four of the forerunner generals raised their fists in the air and yelled their fierce battle cries.

The swirling mist and the ambiguous shapes and objects began to once again encircle John and the rest of the party. However, they were more then used to the strange realm and took the time and opportunity to talk amongst themselves.

"It seems that our forefathers were responsible for this epidemic," the Arbiter commented.

"Yes, but what I'm curious about is how their plans were undermined. How did they lose control of the flood?" Miranda shrugged her shoulders in wonderment.

With the main speakers on, Cortana joined the discussion. "Mam, I'm willing to bet that this experiment was more than they could have wished for. I remember in the archives for the SPARTIAN II project that the gene modification caused some of the soldiers to completely change in personality. They essentially went mad. Maybe something like that occurred. You know what tends to happen when you try to play God."

_The computer is smart one. Next you shall see big battle and then you shall witness beginning of our end! Storytime is almost over, friends._

The voice echoing around them was most certainly that of the grunt general and the grunts with the exiled covenant forces appeared to take pride in that one of their own could achieve such rank.

However, before anyone could again take any comfort and adjust to the surreal environment, the mysterious shrouds began to take shape into something familiar. Johnson recognized it almost immediately.

"Damn, we're back on one of their command ships!"

The action going on outside of the ship, visible through the front windows, showed a battle greater than anything that had been witnessed by covenant or marine forces. The space before them lay littered with countless molten ship parts and thousands of forerunner and enemy crafts engaged each other with their ionic weaponry. Due to the discharge of weapons fire, the very fabric of space appeared to carry on a charge and bolts of lightning raced between the shielding of the ships.

Spreading out on the bridge, Miranda looked out and surveyed every detail. There was a central planet which sparkled like a sun. The best she could discern, the whole surface was covered with buildings and structures. Surrounding the planet in a tetrahedron shape, four distant suns glowed and radiated warmth onto every side of the planet.

Suddenly the ship shook violently and red warning lights flashed throughout the bridge. Armored grunts, humans, and elites worked the controls and the great human general stood at the bridge relaying tactical information. Standing tall and proud, he could have easily been an identical twin to the Master Chief. His shouts and commands worked to keep the forerunners in the battle.

"Have squadrons one through ten flank the enemy on the starboard side! I want Admiral Chromunee to have his fleet join with Admiral Jargunee and spearhead an advance into their middle. Their starboard side is to be obliterated and the port side of their fleet will make an acquaintance with our special friends. The capital will not fall while we can still fight!"

A low ranking grunt spoke out above the din, "General! Communication from the Gravemind."

"Put it up on the tertiary display screen."

One of the far right holographic screens lit up and the image of Gravemind greeted the forerunner general and the guests aboard the ship.

"I am ready to begin your brave new operation. My minions are at your disposal for the time being."

Nodding his head, the general replied, "Very good. We shall use your infection forms to disarm and destroy the leftward side of the enemy fleet. You are then to use the captured vessels, dock them in our shipyards for repairs, and begin to clear our galaxy of this abomination."

"They will soon pray for death when they run into my forces. May victory move towards us swiftly and gracefully."

The image of Gravemind disappeared and the forward windows showed the forerunner fleet in action. A cluster of hundreds of forerunner ships began moving in and concentrating their fire on the center of the enemy fleet. The rays of ions and brilliant flashes of exploding spacecraft lit up the interior of the command vessel like a sun. Outnumbered and outgunned, the forerunner fleet was holding out their own for the time being, but would become overrun if they didn't act.

As the two conjoined fleets began to spearhead into the enemy formation, smaller explosions at the far right side of the fleet became visible. They were splitting the enemy fleet in two successfully despite ever increasing loses.

The general frantically worked at his command controls. "Fleet Admiral Ubanee, complete the stroke and surround the remaining fragments. On my command, have your carriers release the boarding crafts at the other half of their fleet. Only until they've made contact do you have permission to withdraw all forces and retreat back to the remaining support craft."

Through the viewing windows, it was clear that the forerunners' spearhead had lost nearly half of their numbers, but the surrounded sphere of the enemy fleet was being wrecked by hundreds of flashes of light and explosions. The leftward side of the enemy armada was attempting to disperse the forerunner spearhead and was quickly making progress.

"Fleet Admiral, release the parasite and like a great flood of death, let them meet their own personal hell!"

"Sir! Flood filled boarding craft are on their way. Contact in thirty seconds."

Small while spores seemed to be emanating off from the forerunner carriers behind the primary fleet. As they raced by at incredible speeds, many of them passed near the forerunner command vessel. Similar to small needle like projections capable of holding around fifteen elites or marines, the boarding crafts moved at unbelievable speeds towards the enemy fleet.

Realizing that the forerunners were up to something and recognizing that their computer systems were going off the wall, the enemy began to shift its remaining fleet into a defensive position. The initial spearhead of forerunner capital ships were gone, floating in the dead and statically charged abyss of floating wreckage and debris. The half of the enemy fleet which was targeted lay nearly destroyed and the flanking ships mopped up the rest. The explosions from that sector of space quickly died down into nothingness and any remaining vessels lay quiet, destroyed, disable, or simply too exhausted to move.

The remaining forerunner fleet began to regroup in turn. All eyes on the command flagship lay glued to the progress of the boarding craft. Once the flood filled vessels were within range of the enemy armada, their fleet opened fire in a dazzling display of firepower. Instantly, nearly one quarter of the boarding craft met their oblivion. The rest, however, pressed on.

A second wave of ionized fire destroyed yet another large percentage of the boarding craft. Small orange explosions continued to light up the realm of space surrounding the enemy fleet. The hopes of many forerunners on the command flagship began to sink at thoughts of the failed attempt, but more boarding craft survived than thought.

The first boarding craft to hit the enemy shielding exploded on contact. However, in a feat of engineering genius, these crafts resonated an EMP throughout large sections of the shields effectively shutting them down. The remaining vessels easily passed through the empty shielding and made contact with the ship's hull.

Their enormous momentum and razor sharp front nose allowed them to effortlessly punch through the exterior hull and snuggly implant themselves securely inside of the enemy ships. To the horror of the soldiers prepared to fight off the boarders, they wouldn't be greeted by the easily targetable lumbering hulks of armored hunters, but by thousands of small infectious flood forms more than eager to pounce and transform their bodies into rotting masses of the living dead.

From their view on the command vessel, the Chief, his party, and the forerunner crew could see were the small orange explosions dissipate and quickly disappear. The enemy armada stopped firing and all went quiet.

One of the grunts with John and his party spoke out, "Did they beat the meanies?"

John turned around and calmly replied, "I don't know. I guess we'll find out."

A moment of uncertainty went by until the Arbiter gasped, "By the prophets, look what's happening!"

Simultaneously, the tertiary holographic screen lit up and Gravemind's mutated and gigantic face filled the screen.

"My forces now have control of many of their spacecraft. Soon, their strong fleet will be under our complete control."

Explosions began to light up the blackness of space surrounding the invading fleet. The flood controlled vessels began to open fire on the ones they didn't control. In a matter of minutes, the remaining enemy fleet lay devastated and several hundred ships lay under control of the flood and its infected soldiers.

The signaling of victory sent the crew of the command flagship into open cheer. The human general began to speak to Gravemind, but amid the rejoicing, none of the ships guests could hear.

As the shroud-like mist of the unknown and mysterious began to surround the party, the flight of hundreds of remaining forerunner capital ships began to collect around the victorious battlefield. The flood had finally been released, but questions of the forerunner's demise swirled through every mind.

The voice of the human general again rang out through the cloudy shroud.

_You have seen the war begin to turn in our favor but we have no more for you to witness. Now we shall talk and bring the final conclusions to this quagmire. Listen not to who answers your inquiries, but to what our answer is…_

Silence filled the area and the mist continued to flow by the knees of the troops standing around in a nervous wait.

With the Spartan's external speakers activated, Cortana asked the first question. "Excuse me, but you won the battle, the tide and momentum of the war must have shifted to your favor! What happened afterwards?"

_You are right in suggesting that the war turned to our favor. After the battle above our capital planet, we began to press our malevolent foe further back to the edges of the galaxy. _

"And after that, what happened?" Cortana pressed on.

_As the war pressed on, the flood grew stronger and stronger. It eventually even surpassed our control. Gravemind was engulfed with the power that surged through his veins and after each passing day, our control over him waned._

Before Cortana could press even further on the issue, Johnson pressed into the conversation. "I've heard from the Chief that this Gravemind is some butt ugly son of a bitch that looks like an overgrown Venus fly trap. What the hell gives with that?"

_Your jargon amuses me Sergeant. Vice Admiral Trejak was human before genetic modification. Human DNA is most easily manipulated of our four species, so a human was hence forth needed for the changes. We discovered on a planet on the fringes of the galaxy a plant with rapid regenerative properties. It was that DNA which was infused with his. _

"Ahem, if the Sergeant will be so kind as to not interrupt, tell us about the rings you built. You know, the halos," Cortana stated with a slightly irritated tone.

_Near the end of the war, the four of us realized the predicament our civilization faced. Gravemind was becoming uncontrollable and the flood would easily overpower us if provoked. The ones you call engineers, they existed as a neutral race to us and we often purchased their services for construction needs. At our request, they mobilized their entire species to hastily construct the fortress worlds. In mere months, they were completed. We could focus all of our resources towards the project while the flood dealt with our enemy. _

Miranda stepped forward to the Chief and politely asked, "Excuse me Cortana, there is something I must ask as well."

Required to let Commander Keyes speak, she promptly replied, "Go ahead, mam."

"You said that the flood grew beyond your control, so you ultimately fired the rings. What was the purpose of the ark?" Cortana openly asked.

_Some of the flood controlled vessels followed the retreating foes out of the galaxy and are still assumed to be battling them to this day. The enormous returning force returned victorious, but with the desperate need to feed. Gravemind's connection with his minions grew far deeper than predicted. He would not allow the systematic starvation of his armies. They were his children, and he would not watch them die. He eventually discovered our ultimate plan of containment and did not approve. Regardless of the loyalty Trejak once held for us, there was nothing of it left for us now. His armies waged war with our own and it was a conflict we were not to win…._

The voice stopped and the eerie silence returned. The Arbiter, growing nervous, calmly asked into the vast openness, "Please, continue."

_I apologize, this brings us great pain. We, we lost planet after planet. Our families were consumed to the unquenchable hunger of the flood. We built the ark on your planet, Earth, as a haven for our civilization. Two were protected from each race similar to your Adam and Eve. One thousand years after we were forced to activate the halos from the ark, four ships launched from the facility. The first three flew to their new home worlds on the least devastated side of the galaxy and the last landed further above the continent to start anew and to hopefully atone for our great sins. _

The Arbiter, watching the swirling mist and listening in awe quietly asked, "What sins?"

_Sins? The flood is our great sin to this galaxy and if they did successfully follow our great foe, our sins may have spread to countless others. Your job is to join together and forge the alliance that was once held so dear. You must destroy Gravemind! With his death comes the incapacitation of the flood and the promise of the revival of the forerunners! We lay dormant in secret colonies throughout the galaxy waiting for you, our saviors, to reclaim our realm so that we may one day walk freely in it. _

Surprising the whole crew of humans and covenant, Adam Mitchell walked up to the front and took an opportunity to ask his own question. "You speak to me in my mind, you tell me what to do. Why do you torment me?"

_Adam, you are of our direct genetic line. Of course, lacking the general genetic modifications that we all endure, you're designed to fit in with humanity. Nevertheless, you still carry on humanity's trait of telekinetic abilities and creative intelligence. You goal was to work with the humans on Earth and help ensure their survival against the tainted ones. You have done well and we are proud._

Pushing aside Adam, Sergeant Johnson butted in, "Wait wait, super intelligence, telekinetics? And what the hell are the tainted ones? You don't mean these elites next to us right?"

_Don't be facetious. Yes, Adam is a forerunner, but technically, you are all one too. In time, humanity will learn how to use their gift of neural communication. The forerunner is a union. Humanity provides wit and creativity, the Sangheili share their gifts of tactical brilliance, the Unggoy contribute their sheer numbers and willingness to work together, and the Lekgolo provide sheer strength and muscle._

_As for your second inquiry, it displeases me to say that our foes created an ark of their own before the flood drove them out. In it, they left behind subservient species you call the prophets, brutes, drones, and jackals. Over time, they forgot about their previous allegiance. As the prophets interacted with each different species, the Sangheili being the first, they spread lies and deceit to only increase their own power and influence.. We were powerless to act against them and still are. I assume that when they met humanity, they were reminded of the creators of the forerunner and sought to destroy them once and for all. _

Everyone shook their heads in shock and even Cortana was temporarily without words. Finally, Miranda spoke.

"What is it you want us to do?"

_Go now! Your job is to protect the rest of your races and ensure that the flood do not take them. When your worlds are secured, you must find and destroy Gravemind before he too, destroys you. Go, time is of the essence! Remember, two of our fortress worlds are destroyed. They are ineffective now and can no longer be relied on. This time, failure is not an option!_

As the silence once again returned, the shroud of mist began to abate. Darkness took over the minds of everyone and their consciousness was slowly returned back to their own realm. The mysterious forces that had taken control left their thoughts and the light slowly returned as they opened their eyes.

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**Authors' Notes**

I deeply apologize for the long wait in the development of this chapter. This is my freshman year in college and the school work has been kicking my rear-end to say the least. I have papers and finals to prepare for now, and I wanted to get this chapter finished before the real grind began. Please take my sincere regret in delaying any progress in chapter 8 for a few weeks at worst.

Regarding this Chapter, I hope you all enjoy. It was surprisingly hard to create a tangible history for the forerunner and flood, and I hope that you all think that it's something that could have possibly happened. As for the conversation between the forerunner and the search party at the last part of the chapter, I chose the forerunner comments to be italicized only because they were not directly speaking, but through the minds of each individual. In the actual re-enacting portions of the dream, they the forerunner are speaking directly to the marines/exiled covenant so there was no need for italicization. Sorry about any confusion about that. Please drop a review if you have a chance, but most importantly, I hope you enjoy this addition to my story!


	8. A Delay in Plans

A Delay in Plans

"… and so, when Ruyap wasn't paying attention, the food nipple squirted out blueberry goodness all over his face!" Nuyac laughed hysterically while slapping his knee in amusement. While still laughing at the story, he glanced up at the elite next to him expecting to hear additional laughter. However, all he got back in return was a cold look. Nuyac's laughter died down and he faced himself back towards the hallway. After removing his glance from the elite, the grunt carried on again, laughing heartily at the story that quite possibly could only amuse his own kin.

Trying to ignore the grunt's foolish joke, Oja Ferrunee focused on the patrol. He didn't understand why he was stuck on the graveyard shift patrol and didn't understand what angered his superiors enough to pair him up with this grunt. He rubbed the bandage on his wounded arm, deep in thought. The rapid progress of healing was undoubtedly due to that cold ointment that the human sergeant had applied much earlier in the day.

Swimming around in his already busy mind was the progression of the war against the humans. He was new soldier in what the Sangheili called the _Trephalee_, or 'Prophet's Army.' It was composed of fellow elites and of the other castes of Covenant society. The blue armor still sparkled with the quality only found from fresh factory manufacture. The Elite military training facility was separate of the others. Exclusive training made the elites extremely efficient to train, but was also cause for much of their arrogance towards soldiers of other races. During the cycle and a half of training, virtues of loyalty, obedience, but most importantly, honor, were all drilled into his skull. They nearly went hand and hand with absolute law, but only after half a cycle of being a certified soldier, he was told to cease fire against the humans. To stand in the presence of humans with meaning of peace was baffling, but he was to obey his superiors. He didn't mention it to anyone else, but he was actually rather impressed with their stubbornness and resourcefulness in the face of complete defeat. Watching the battle-hardened human Sergeant walk around with pride and strength was enough to carry on the image. He respected that and deep down and wished to fight alongside such a soldier.

Oja snapped back to reality and saw that Nuyac was still laughing to himself and wandering off ahead of him.

"Get back over here," he barked.

The ever cheerful grunt turned around, gave a high pitched bark, and then fell back to the elite.

All grunts, ever since the grunt rebellion, were forced to treat the elites as nothing less than Gods. It was a position that many elites took advantage of and that many grunts greatly resented. However, in the case of Nuyac and Oja Ferrunee, there were subtle hints of friendship between the two. Notable changes in their behaviors appear when they were separated. There was an obvious bond formed between the two during their pairing during the last half cycle. Although such a relationship was normally looked down upon, Oja's superior, Field Major Tal Victoree, began to notice improved military performance between elites and grunts with a shared sense of camaraderie. As a result, Oja and Nuyac were allowed to stick together.

Although Oja and Nuyac were assigned to the graveyard shift on the _Faithful Blessing_'s secondary supply chamber, there was heightened importance on this particular task. Motion sensors in this rarely accessed sector warned of movement and two grunts had disappeared in the vicinity. Motion sensors were acting screwy in other desolate sections of the ship but further analysis leaded towards equipment malfunction. Although it seemed like there was a problem with the equipment, the Arbiter ordered that nothing be overlooked. Not particularly concerned with the loss of a few grunts, it did make the Arbiter suspicious to that particular area of the ship. Lacking the man-power to send a whole fire team, Oja and Nuyac were sent to check it out while he joined the demon in search of the ark.

Oja and Nuyac came up to the entry door and Oja fluidly punched in the access code on a data pad inserted into the side of the door. The data pad beeped several times and the door hissed open.

Nuyac pulled the plasma pistol out of his weapons belt. The new weapon came to life and the tiny display on its backside read '100'. He looked up to Oja and said, "Your Excellency, are you ready?"

Oja activated both of his plasma rifles and adjusted his shielding to full strength. He glanced back down towards the grunt and nodded. "Let's get this over with."

The duo cautiously walked into the nearly empty storage chamber. Surprisingly, even with the civil war in full effort and with previous brute command of the ship, the room actually looked quite spacious with the lack of supply crates. Under similar circumstances, the room should have been packed with supplies. A half-dozen stood stacked in the middle under dim lighting. Oja instantly disliked the environment as the normally well lit areas of the ship were not observable in this particular room. Many of the lights did not work and long shadows extended from nearly every corner of the room.

Instinctively walking towards the lit central area, Oja quickly glanced to every part of the room. He didn't see anything, yet.

The tiny hairs on the back of Nuyac's neck began to stand after a few seconds. He pulled down the trigger on his plasma pistol and let it overcharge. As the ball of plasma began to grow, the weapon became slightly unstable and the grunt had to use both hands to get control.

The sounds of tendrils moving across a moist surface were covered up by the gentle hum of Nuyac's charged plasma pistol. An infectious flood form sensed the presence of the food and an overwhelming hunger began to sweep over it. They had been hiding for hours, painstakingly patient, waiting for an opportunity to strike. As the large spacecraft hovered over the great fortress-world, the infection forms had quickly sneaked aboard the gravity lift. There were only two guards, and although they were much larger than previous pray, they fell just the same. With the guard down, hundreds swarmed aboard. Soon after they came, hundreds of elites swarmed onto the craft and battles raged throughout the ship. It was no time to attack; they would be gunned down in battle. But now, secretly hiding and the time to strike quickly coming, they'd take ship and give their master a great prize… Earth. Hiding in the suffering confines of hunger and darkness, the infection forms watched two creatures go towards the center of the room.

"Me had a bad feeling about this," Nuyac nervously said.

"Quiet," Oja ordered. He quickly glanced at the grunt and saw him nervously glancing around in a circle expecting an enemy to come from all sides. "Stay alert, nothing is wrong, we'll be fine."

He couldn't believe he was consoling a fellow soldier, and the fact that it was a grunt seemed to add insult to injury. But inside, he felt calmer himself and Nuyac noticeably improved himself.

Suddenly, something felt wrong – very wrong. Oja felt the threat of danger quickly rising and he crouched into a battle position aiming his weapons into the darkness.

The infection form know the time had come. It rushed ahead while the elite's back was facing it. Ten meters away, it prepared to jump and inject its small needlelike projection into the hapless victim's spine, paralyzing it and subjecting it to the new authority.

Nuyac let out a startled cry and saw a wave of darkness quickly moving in towards them. Oja's acute hearing rapidly picked up the grunt's cry of the sound and as he turned around, his peripheral vision caught the movement. He roared in rage and blasted the first wave of squid like flood forms to ash with this duel plasma rifles.

The dark wave kept coming. Oja Ferrunee, tributed by his name, had nerves of iron. He gritted his mandibles together and gave his plasma rifles the half second needed to discharge some of its heat and proceeded to vaporize and melt the remaining infection forms.

Nuyac uncovered his eyes. It had seemed like an eternity and he shyly peaked around. The dark shadows stopped moving and Oja was breathing very deeply. He could see the adrenaline surge through the elite's blood. It was the battle state that made elites so incredibly deadly.

All Nuyac heard for several seconds was a dull hum. He realized that his plasma pistol was still overcharged and was on the brink of melting. The magnetic field containing the supercharged plasma was waning. Before the grunt could plan his next action, the sound of heavy footsteps could be heard approaching. To the sheer horror and disbelief of Oja and Nuyac, a doorway burst open from the shadows. A banshee like wail thundered into their ears and towering black forms rushed towards them.

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Spartan 117 slowly opened his eyes and felt the groggy sensation of waking up after a deep sleep. He shook his head to remove the sleepiness and realized that his body was on the floor, back down.

John then felt the icy cool presence of Cortana flow through his suit's integrated computer network and move into his own head. "Can you believe what just happened? The forerunner, halo, the flood … everything was explained to us. I had found hints of these events from the data I downloaded back on Alpha Halo, but it would take me days to process it all. Scanners report that this experience was mere minutes long."

"Feels like coming out of cryo," John simply replied.

He stood up as the rest of the patrol began to pull themselves back to reality. Mutterings of coffee and caffeine came from marines. A few grunts began to chatter about something called 'Tupine' but the elites remained quiet and simply pulled themselves off of the ground.

The Arbiter never had to worry about going into a cryo tube for slipspace travel. Even for the longer jumps, his ships could easily cross the distance in several days thanks to the far more advanced slipspace generators. Human slipspace generators, Shaw-Fujikawa generators, were assigned to every UNSC capital ship. They tore a hole into the slipspace stream and forced the ship to enter. This brutish entry was widely believed to hinder the ease of the ship from traveling smoothly throughout this alternate realm. Covenant slipspace drives, however, had been able to make pinpoint and comparatively quick slipspace jumps due to their tiny insertion into slipspace. Their entry into this alternate physical realm was done much smoother and much more efficiently.

As he shook the odd but tiring feeling out of his body, his eyes caught the reflection of light off a smooth surface on the glowing white pedestal. They seemed to draw him in and although he couldn't put his finger on them, they looked oddly familiar to something he'd heard of in the past.

The Master Chief looked over his left shoulder and saw the Arbiter glancing towards the white pedestal in the center of the room, too. He decided to walk over to the elite and see what was drawing their combined attention. As he approached, John noticed five diamond like stones laying upon the bright, white surface.

"What do you believe these relics are?" inquired the Arbiter. There was a noticeable tone of awe in his voice. It was apparent that the encounter with the forerunners in the ark made a deep and profound impression on him.

John shrugged his shoulders in response and asked Cortana the same thing. Carefully reaching into the white beams of light, the Spartan gently picked up one of the ornately engraved stones and allowed Cortana to analyze it.

"Hmmm, let me see. Hang on, I think the carvings on the stones look remotely familiar."

John had also caught words on the tip of his tongue. The stones did look strangely familiar, but from where?

Suddenly he had it. During his mission to Cote d'Azur all the way back on the Sigma Octanus system, he remembered the mission to find out why the Covenant had taken the city rather than glassing it over. His small infiltration team had made it into the city sewers and quickly arrived to the museum. Inside, after defeating two hunters, the Spartans captured a piece of granite with intricate symbols on it. It turned out to be an ancient star chart, and one of several others inevitably found with coordinates to Reach, Alpha Halo, and Earth. That's what the five rocks were laying before him. They were ancient relics of forerunner star charts. Not the only question was, where did they lead to?

"Chief, they appear to be star coordinates. If they have anything to do with data I collected in Halo's computer network, I'd say that these stones give the directions to the other five halos," said Cortana mechanically.

Guilty Spark hummed above their heads. "It appears that my creators want you to deal with the fortress worlds. Their studies have come to an end and there is no longer any purpose for them to exist. The flood inhabiting them must be eliminated now. Activation of the structures is unacceptable. We will journey to them, and I shall show you the way."

"They must want us to destroy them like we did with the others to kill the flood whom are still on them," John surmised.

The Arbiter looked at the Master Chief and said surprisingly, "You wish to destroy the other five sacred rings?"

Half Jaw overhead the conversation and joined in. "Surely, the sacred rings, the objects we worked so hard to protect. There must be a way to preserve them."

On the Chief's speakers, Cortana answered both of their questions at once. "Remember what the rings were designed to do. Study the flood, and ultimately destroy their food if there came the need. You must remove the idea of these rings being sacred relics. They hold the key to our annihilation and if we don't do this, the whole galaxy is at risk!"

The Arbiter shook his head. There had to be a way. Unfortunately, he had already destroyed Delta Halo when he detonated the anti-matter bomb on High Charity. He did not wish to be responsible for the destruction for the other five. "We will not hastily jump to conclusions. There is still time to think of another way."

Guily Spark turned towards the elite and answered with a tone of forewarning, "Very well, you are correct. But we can not dawdle on the issue least the outbreak becomes too widespread to contain. There are flood outside of the halos and we need to consider every possible risk to prevent a planet wide outbreak. If that happens, all is lost."

The Arbiter knew the oracle was right, but there had to be some other way.

As he took a moment to think about another solution, his headset crackled to life. The miles of dirt and rock hampered with the signal, but the Arbiter could still clearly hear the transmission.

"Arbiter! The vile flood has infiltrated the ship! They're attacking the bridge and …" the voice of the elite ended and the Arbiter could hear a massive explosion. As the ringing in his ears died down, the battle cries of several elites rang above the din followed by this hissing of plasma swords coming to life. The tortured cries of flood combat forms mingled with the sounds of the elites. As suddenly as it had come, his transmission ended. All he heard was dead static.

Shock and rage on his face, he demanded to Commander Keyes who was checking the status of her marines, "Commander, are those vehicles still outside?"

Hearing the urgency in his voice, she immediately answered, "Yes, they're ready for immediate evac."

The Arbiter glanced towards Half Jaw and ordered, "Come with me! The flood has spread their vile presence onto the _Faithful Blessing_. They will not be allowed to leave the ship!"

Keyes and Johnson's eyes lit up at the news. She quickly ordered, "Johnson, Chief, come with me now! Johnson, grab our best marines. We must get to the surface now!"

"Edwards, Perez, Williamson, Martin, mount up!" Johnson barked. "The rest of you hillbillies, double time it to the surface. Last one up gets fed to the Flood alive!"

The command room inside the ark was a flurry of activity. Marines, elites, grunts, and a few hunters all started running out of the chamber. John quickly grabbed the four other stones and put them carefully into his supply pouches. Turning, he sprinted out of the door towards the warthogs. In seconds, the large chamber was nearly empty. With the dim glow of the white pedestal, one figure could be seen walking the other way. His white lab coat giving away his presence, Adam Mitchell continued to move towards what seemed to be solid wall.

While group were fixated on the five stones in the middle of the room, Adam had quietly sneaked over to the far side of the room. As they all rapidly left, no one noticed that Adam went the other way.

With his nose centimeters from solid stone, he pilled out a small scalpel from his lab coat pocket. He made a small but deep cut on his index finger and let the blood run. As he pressed his blood soaked finger on the wall, a golden symbol began to appear from the previously bare stone wall. He instinctively withdrew his finger and grimaced as a burning sting passed through his arm. Looking at his burnt finger, Adam noticed that it had been fused shut and was no longer bleeding. The golden symbol faded and disappeared. In its place doorway appeared as wall of rock a meter thick simply vanished. The forerunner scientist disappeared into the dark pathway beyond.

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Oja squeezed the triggers on his duel plasma rifles and the superheated bursts burned through rotting flesh. The foremost combat form took the full brunt of the energy weapons and they rapidly incinerated the outermost layers of skin and muscle. Its chest cavity melted under the heat and the infection form inside of the body was burned into ash. As the dead hulk of mass tumbled to the ground, its body sizzled of hot fat and muscle and the stench of burnt flesh made it to Oja's nose.

The combat form to the right of the first crashed to the ground a millisecond later as Nuyac's super charged pistol discharged. Whether it was a feat of skill or complete luck, no one will ever know, but large ball of charged plasma impacted directly upon the chest. As the creature fell, Nuyac saw foot deep cavity of liquefied skin pour out of its chest.

Oja was tempted to openly congratulate the grunt, another action that was normally looked down upon, but he didn't have a change. A third combat form continued its charge towards the elite and he smoothly transferred the pounding avalanche of plasma towards the next threat. Several bursts of plasma impacted its shoulder, but it wasn't enough to deliver the killing blow.

With the trait of inexperience, Oja didn't even notice that his plasma rifle was glowing red with heat. The shielding around his hands was weakened to allow for easier gripping the the weapons. Normally advantageous, the weak shielding was unable to hold off the weapon's heat for very long. Oja's hands burst of fire and the elite instinctively dropped them as pain surged through his burnt hands.

As he looked up, he saw the huge combat form lung at him. The whip like extensions on its far arm smashed into his chest and he saw his body shielding flash to life. Even with fully powered body shields, they were not strong enough to take the brunt of the attack. The momentum of the attack sent the elite flying backwards several meters and the whip-like extensions sent gashes across the brand new chest plate. The elite crashed into the stack of supply crates, tumbling on top of him.

Oja saw it all happen like a flash of light and it took him a moment to get back his bearings. He couldn't move and for a moment he though he was dead. However, as his vision came back, he saw that he was pinned down by several heavy supply crates. As he took a deep breath, he felt a knife lance into his chest. He knew that several of his ribs were broken. He heard the victorious cry of the combat form and winced at the though of being food for such a vile beast. His blurred vision caught the outline of the flood form and he saw it approach.

The combat form pressed its diseased foot upon the supply crate on Oja's chest and it leaned towards him. Although the elite couldn't identify where the sound came from, it didn't matter. From some opening in its body, the combat form uttered a cry so terrible that the elite's mental consciousness was completely swept over by sheer terror. All of his training didn't even matter as his brain registered the terrible wail. If he wasn't pinned down, the elite would have fled as fast as his legs could have physically carried him.

Oja struggled against the fear and collapsed back down from the unbearable pain his chest. He closed his eyes and prepared for the fate worse than death. With his last moments of life, he muttered a prayer to his ancestors for protection.

Someone must have been listening, because Oja heard a high pitched cry, "Down in front!"

The pressure on his chest lightened and Oja saw the combat form turn its attention towards Nuyac. As it turned and rushed towards the grunt, Oja saw something glowing in its back. Nuyac saw the great smasher of elites coming at him and ran in the opposite direction. He didn't know if his plasma grenade hit the beast, but he didn't care. It was time to hi-tail it out of there and as he turned, he screamed, "Little people first!"

No sooner than he had taken three steps, he felt a wave of energy surge past him sending his body tumbling forwards. Sticky green goo plastered his body and he turned to see that all that remained of the combat form was a pair of charred legs. Green guts covered everything around him and if the grunt could have had any one thing at that moment, it would have been a shower.

Picking himself up, he shook off much of the gore on his body and looked around for Oja. His hopes dropped when after a quick scan of the area, he saw nothing. The he heard the groan and saw the elite's legs sticking out of the pile of fallen supply crates. He rushed over to the mess and saw the elite's pained face.

"Get this thing off me," Oja said painfully.

Not needing to reply, the grunt positioned himself near the crate and heaved with all of his might. Although he wasn't strong enough to lift the object on his own, the combined effort gave enough muscle to slide it off of Oja's chest.

Oja Ferrunee pulled himself to his feet and coughed up a mouthful of blood. It spattered to the ground and he wiped his mandibles with his hands. The pain in his chest was still there, but subsided with the enormous weight of the crates off his chest.

The elite looked down at the grunt. Nuyac returned the look and he held out a 'thumbs up.' "We make good team," he enthusiastically commented.

Oja nodded. "Yes, yes we do." Before he broke the grunt's eye contact, he said something not said to a grunt in many, many millennia. "Thanks."

Nuyac stood still as its brain attempted to register for a fact what it just heard. Oja, however, didn't sit on the issue and he began to investigate the mess of toppled supply crates. One had toppled over behind them and had opened up. To his surprise, he saw some weapons scattered on the ground. He picked them both up and returned to Nuyac.

"Here, take this," Oja ordered as he handed the grunt one of the weapons.

Grunts were known to be very primitive creatures by comparative standards to elites. Their thought process was slower; they were smaller, and basically inferior in almost every quality. However, even though mentally and physically less developed than their elite counterparts, they did have one common quality. They loved explosions. The bigger, the better. Elites tried to suppress their joys of such things in an attempt to preserve the quality of sophistication, but they too enjoyed using heavy weapons and watching the resulting action.

Nuyac's eyes widened with joy as he grasped the fuel rod cannon. It had a full clip of six shots and plenty of spare rounds. He gratefully wielded the weapon and noticed the weapon in Oja's burnt hand. It was a plasma sword. Even grunts knew that a blue elite did not have the rank nor the training to use such a weapon. Although perfectly able to use it, Nuyac knew that not only would Oja lack any real skill, but he might be punished by his superiors for stepping between rank privileges. Circumstances were anything but ordinary, however, and the grunt did not question his partner's actions.

They raced out of the storage chamber and heard the echoing of battle throughout the ship. Oja couldn't run at full speed with Nuyac toting the heavy weapon, but somehow, the grunt managed to move at a fairly rapid pace. They rounded several corners and heard the sounds of battle coming from the primary medical facility. Oja knew that there were dozens of wounded elites and grunts in there from the battles earlier against the brutes. It saddened his heart to think of them all succumbing to the flood. Fueled by their hate for the flood, the duo raced through the doorway.

The sight sickened them the second they jumped in. Green, infected blood coated the walls and the room reeked of death and decay. However, two blue armored elites and a pair of grunts were attempting to take the room back. They opened plasma fire upon flood combat forms who returned fire with similar weapons. Several bolts of plasma hit the shielding of an elite and he ducked into cover to let them re-charge. A grunt, however, was not so lucky and took a hit in the face. Its face mask melted away inhibiting its ability to breath. With severe burns on its face, it died in vain gasping for air.

Nuyac saw his comrade fall and barked in rage. He took aim with his fuel rod cannon. A great yellow-green bolt of energy slammed into a pack of three elite combat forms. They disintegrated as the energy washed over them. Identifying the new threat, the remaining flood forms shrieked in pleasure at the sight of more food. They opened fire on the two. Nuyac ducked behind a surgical table and Oja leapt towards the nearest flood form. With surprising grace, he snapped the plasma sword to life with a flick of his wrist while still in mid air. The flood form dropped its plasma pistol and prepared a crushing blow for the charging elite.

Although Oja displayed amazing skill in the first part of his attack, the surprising weight of the active sword caused his decent to fall off balance and as he lunched his sword forward, he missed the combat form's body. Oja grimaced as he fell to the ground with a hard thud several feet to the right of the combat form. The plasma sword jarred out of his injured hand and deactivated as it skidded on the floor. Oja noticed with a slight sense of satisfaction as the flood form's whipped arm fall to the floor as well.

The combat form lurched forward and prepared to slam its other fist into the elite. Oja quickly rolled away from the assault and heard the combat forms' rotting fist shatter as it impacted the metal floor. It roared in surprise realizing that its pray had escaped.

Oja reached out and grasped the plasma sword and reactivated it. With a balanced and smooth stroke, he cut the flood form directly through the chest. A searing gash crossed through numerous organs, muscle, and flesh. The infection form inside of its chest also fell across the path of the plasma blade and it melted under the heat of the weapon. The infected elite collapsed to the ground and Oja quickly nodded as its soul was finally able to join his ancestors.

Two more blasts caught Oja's attention and he saw two shots from Nuyac's fuel rod cannon obliterate another group of combat forms. One of the blue elites hurled a plasma grenade forward and its detonation finished off the rest of the flood forms.

Oja held onto his plasma sword and was amazed by the grace and fluidity of its movement. He understood why only the higher ranked elites used such a weapon and the careful demands to balance, weight, and discipline that were needed to use it effectively. Although it was heavy, almost similar in mass to a grunt, it conformed to his fingers with surprising ease. It was truly a remarkable weapon.

The two elites strode over to Oja. The first one shook his head in disbelief and said, "It's an insult that these beasts snuck into the _Faithful Blessing_ and it's even worse that they took several dozen of our brethren with them." He nodded towards the rows of surgical tables which were covered with the rotting entrails of the flood.

Oja asked in reply, "There were few here. Tell me, where did the rest go?"

"The majority made off towards the bridge. We caught the remaining ones here and destroyed them with your assistance," the second elite answered.

Oja nodded, started towards the doorway and said with authority, "Then it's to the bridge me must go. We will gain control of it and burn any flood in our path!"

The two other elites tightened their plasma rifles and growled their war cries before followed Oja Ferrunee.

As the elites neared the door, they saw Nuyac the three other grunts kneeling over their fallen comrade.

Oja spoke out, "Come. There will be a time to give our respect to the fallen, but we have a job to do."

Nuyac and the other grunts nodded, picked up their weapons, and followed the elites out of the door.

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Spartan 117 ran over to the nearest warthog and barked out an order to surrender the vehicles. The marines on station obediently followed the command. John hoped into the driver's seat, Commander Keyes sat in the passenger seat and Sergeant Johnson manned the powerful M41 LAAG in the back. The Chief slammed his foot on the accelerator and whipped the vehicle in a quick 180 degree turn. As he began to speed off towards the tunnel, he saw through the rear mirror the other five warthogs speeding in his direction. Three were manned by the Arbiter and his elites and the other two had the best marines Johnson could find.

As John's warthog sped up the curved incline, Johnson shouted aloud, "I'll be damned if those squiddy bastards ever make it to the surface. They're going to find out what happens when you pick a fight with the human race."

The other marines heard Johnson's comment on the COMM channel and shouted in unison, "Hoo-rah!"

The Spartan's comm. system, however, was channeled to be exclusively between Cortana and John. He kept his full attention on the road while listening to the Smart AI.

"Chief, hurry as much as you can! My demographic readouts report that there are major metropolitan areas only one hundred miles away – twenty miles away if New Mombosa was still standing. If even one flood form gets to one of these cities, we're talking about a pandemic!"

"Relax, I know what we're up against," John replied smoothly. Although he spoke the words, he didn't necessarily believe them himself. But John had never lost before, and he was reassured himself that he'd win at this mission, too.

Cortana continued as if the Spartan hadn't even said anything, "And if a city falls, I don't think the garrison at Diego Garcia will be able to contain it. It'd spread to more and more cities. Such an event could be the final demise of humanity."

John know that what she spoke of was the truth, but he wasn't going to see such a thing happen as long as there was an ounce of life left in his body. He'd been trained at the age of six to protect his people and he wasn't about ready to stop what he did best.

Amid the roar of the engines, Commander Keyes shouted out, "Chief, drop me off at the command post near-by. I need to radio in for backup. We're going to need an army of marines here to do a thorough sweep of the area."

Keeping both eyes on the winding path before him, the Spartan obediently answered, "Yes 'mam."

At full throttle speeds of about one hundred kilometers per hour, John knew that he and his fellow Spartans could sprint short distances at just under this speed. However, normal marines couldn't, and from what he'd seen on the battlefield, elites were a bit slower than them, too. Their hoofed, horse like feet did allow them for quick bursts of speed, but their adaptive traits were focused more around being able to stabilize and control their great size and power. The hard, steel like muscles and iron hard bones accomplished nearly the same thing as the Spartan's bodily augmentations and the MJOLNER armor combined. Without them, their bones would shatter and muscles would tear as the body attempted to control the swift and powerful motions.

At full speed, it took less than a minute to reach the surface. The warthog kicked dirt in the air as it sped along the freshly dug ground. John's warthog had a slight head start on the others and his superior driving skills gave him about ten seconds of extra time. He jerked the steering wheel hard to the left and grabbed the emergency break. The vehicle lurched in a one hundred and twenty degree turn as the back wheels flew out behind them nearly sending Sergeant Johnson flying off of the mounted turret.

"Goddamn chief. Who the hell taught you how to drive?" Johnson shouted.

John ignored the sergeant and slammed his foot back on the accelerator. Johnson had to wrap his arms around the LAAG just to survive the sheer inertia of the maneuver. He grumbled something under his breath but no one heard it over the roar of the engine.

With the engine at full speed, John made the quick short cut to the command post. Fortunately, it was only a few hundred meters from the gravity lift giving the Spartan plenty of time to cycle back. As he brought the warthog to a sudden halt, Commander Keyes leapt off of the vehicle and ran over to one of the many large tents.

John turned the wheel and slammed his foot on the gas again. The warthog kicked up dirt and grass as it spun around and he gunned it towards the gravity lift.

The other five warthogs arrived just as John pulled in. Jumping out of the vehicle, he ran over to the gravity lift where six elites and a dozen grunts stood waiting.

The Arbiter nodded to the elites standing guard and he spoke to the humans in a hurried voice, "Standard flood control. Nothing gets off this ship alive." He looked at the Master Chief. "Ready?"

"Born ready," the Spartan coolly replied.

The Covenant guards remained at their post while the Arbiter, Half-Jaw, John, Johnson, and the rest of their soldiers stepped under the gravity lift. As the anti-gravity beams picked up on their physical bodies, they were rapidly whisked into the belly of the ship.

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Lieutenant Adam Mitchell felt his legs walking swiftly though the inky blackness. He held his hand directly up to his face but he couldn't see a thing. For some unexplainable reason, he knew where he was going, and the darkness wasn't inhibiting his movement in the least. He coursed back through his memories but couldn't remember ever being in such a place. As he questioned what was going on, the voice came back.

"We are almost there," it said calmly.

Adam paused his thoughts and took a moment to formulate his thoughts. "I should have figured you were the one guiding me," he finally said.

"Tell me, you remember nothing similar to this?" the voice inquired.

Adam continued to feel his legs moving, almost against his own will, and he dug deep into his mind to find any remote recollection of a similar experience. He shifted through childhood memories. He remembered asking his mother to check under the bed and in the closet for the boogieman at the age of four. He remembered his first day of kindergarten and being able to read, write, and perform arithmetic amid the surprised expressions of his teacher. The memories shifted to his ninth birthday when he received notification that he'd be going to a special academy for the gifted. Then he remembered the day in the city street when he was six, the metal beam that nearly crushed him, and his first encounter with the voices. Later that night, he was all alone in his room when the power went out. The night was pitch black and without electricity, the house was also filled with the darkness. Adam remembered being terrified, but somehow, he knew where to go to get the flashlights.

"You mean that time in the house when I was six and still managed to walk around amid the darkness?" Adam finally said to the voice.

"Yes, I'm glad you remember. Your eyes are a wonderful thing, but when they fail, you'll find that you don't need them," it said softly.

"But why is that?" Adam didn't know where the voice was going with the conversation.

"Son, Forerunners were able to understand an enormous amount of the universe, but their knowledge was only a grain of sand on a beach."

Adam was stunned to hear that statement. "And our present understanding is the equivalent to the same metaphor compared to you."

"Yes, but that is besides the point. What you must understand is that there are mysterious forces in the universe that we do not even understand. We built humble temples to show our respect to these forces, but they were nothing to the ones we discovered like the one you humans discovered on Reach. Our ancient myths pointed to a divine being, similar to your so called Christian God." The voice paused before continuing. "These structures had arcane symbols sketched onto them. They were activated by blood, but it had to be forerunner blood and not simply that of a simple animal. We believe it's a testament of sacrifice to the great beings around us all."

"Wait, wait a moment," Adam interjected. "Then how did they get into the temple on Reach?"

"Dr. Halsey's Spartans were selected based on favorable genetic combinations. Ironically, each individual had very rare sets of alleles in their DNA which are identical to enhanced human forerunner DNA. However, since humanity as you know it is descendant of our race, any human would be able to activate the symbols."

It made sense to the Lieutenant, but the voice still didn't explain what he was doing in the dark and winding passageways. As if answering the question, Adam's legs stopped moving. The darkness around him began to disappear and golden symbols began to illuminate the tunnel around him. The rock tunnel was thick enough for two men to walk through side by side and the ceiling was about eight feet from the ground. The surface Adam stood on was made of a strange blue tile like substance that neither felt too rough or too slippery.

"We noticed this passageway one hundred thousand years ago, but we could not open it. We believed that only the chosen one, one with the will of the Gods could enter. We now believe that this person is you."

The arcane symbols glowed so brightly that Adam had to shield his eyes. He covered eyes to protect himself from the harsh glare and as soon as he removed them, darkness surrounded him once again. However, a doorway had opened before him and an inclined platform the size of a Spartan glowed under a single unknown light.

The voice returned. "Walk over to the table and lean back on it."

Adam did as he was told. As his back hit the cool stone surface, he felt his body fuse to it. Like iron being held by a powerful magnet, Adam found that he could not lift himself from the stable he was leaning against.

"What is this trickery?" he cried out.

The voice replied soothingly, "Relax. Specific genes in your DNA will now be expressed. Your body will undergo a painful but necessary progression. You have a long and important task set in front of you. If you fail, humanity, covenant, and the forerunner will be wiped clean of this universe never to return. You have been specifically chosen and we've done everything we could do to help you. But now you must relax and rest."

Adam took a deep breath and exhaled. He closed his eyes and attempted to think happy thoughts. However, he suddenly felt intolerable pain streak though every inch of his body. He gritted his teeth together and fought, but it was too great. His eyes darkened and consciousness left his body.

The last thing he heard was the voice say, "Spartan 117 has an important fate himself and we'll help him with it, but without your help, the universe will be doomed."

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John's eyes immediately adjusted to the familiar lighting of the interior of the ship. The sounds of battle were all around and the ship seemed to shake with each passing explosion. Green blood and guts lay scattered all over the floor as flood forms met their demise from the automated defenses on the upper walls. They were most likely seeking an escape from the ship. He waved his arm forward, "Alright, lets move out."

The Arbiter pointed to a doorway in the far corner of the huge room. "This is the quickest way to the bridge."

The elite raced over to the door and slid his palm onto an identification pad. A microscopic needle poked his finger and ran a DNA analysis. It confirmed the DNA with that on record and the door slid open.

"Chief, put me in that computer terminal!" Cortana urgently requested. The Spartan moved next to the Arbiter. Removing the microchip from his helmet, he inserted it into the computer terminal. He felt the icy presence leave his mind as he removed Cortana and she appeared moments later from a holo pad. "I'm integrating with the ship's network. I'll make sure that they don't get complete control of it."

John nodded and followed the elites through the opened doorway. He kept his newly acquired energy rifle tight in his arms and prepared to join the fight against the flood.

As they rounded the corner, Half-Jaw nearly ran face first into a carrier flood form. The spec-ops elite knew how they functioned and he leapt back just as the flood form attempted to topple on top of him. The carrier form exploded and sent a half dozen infection forms flying towards them. The Arbiter and his elites opened fire with their plasma rifles and flash-fried them all before they had an opportunity to attack.

They pressed forward and passed through another security locked door. As the two halves parted, the boarding party saw two blue armored elites fall to an incoming avalanche of plasma fire. They shouted cries of pain before they were torn apart by over a dozen combat forms.

It was an act too heinous for words. John shouldered his weapon and fired. The pulse of yellow light streaked at the mass of flood and the explosion detonated in the middle of the pack. They didn't even have an opportunity to cry out as they were torn apart. Limbs smashed against the walls with bone shattering force.

About ready to move forward, dozens more raced to the scene. The hallways crawled with infection and combat forms and they all charged the newly arrived elites and humans with hunger driven alacrity.

Plasma bolts flared towards the Spartan and his shielding flashed to life as they absorbed the energy. His HUD flashed red and warnings beeped inside of his helmet signaling low shield strength. The Arbiter, Half-Jaw and several other elites also were forced to absorb plasma energy with their shields.

Suddenly Sergeant Johnson shouted, "Grenades!"

The front row of elites and John instinctively ducked down as seven M9 HE-DP fragmentation grenades flew over their heads. They landed throughout the incoming wave of flood forms and detonated with a resonating boom. Green gore plastered the walls and black smoke filled the hallway before them. With the elites still in a crouching formation, they fired their plasma rifles while the marines opened fire with the BR-55 battle rifles. John included a half dozen bursts of his own weapon. As the ventilation systems cleared up the black smoke, there was nothing left of the flood attackers except for burning arms and legs, and green blood coating the walls like a fresh layer of paint.

The Arbiter rushed ahead and said, "Quickly, the bridge is through the next doorway."

Cortana's voice rang through the hallway speakers. "I thought you'd never ask. I've just unlocked the doors, and I think that they're going to need your help!" The whole party paused for a moment for the comment to register and they pressed forwards towards the door.

Cortana had done her job well, and the normally locked door beeped open as the two halves slid apart. The insides of the bridge looked like a war zone. Elite and flood blood littered the floor and in the far side of the room, a battle was still raging. Surrounded by flood forms, a group of elites and grunts battled against insurmountable odds.

Suddenly, a group of combat forms flew backwards against the force of a large explosion. Through the cleared pathway, a low ranking grunt with a fuel rod cannon was seen reloading the weapon with six more shots. As he performed the task, the rest of the force appeared from behind corners of wall and piles of debris and sprayed the flood with suppressing fire. The combat forms shrieked in rage against the unrelenting will of their food.

Just as the Arbiter gave the command to charge into the battle, a shimmer of bright white light erupted from the chest cavity of an infected elite. It toppled to the ground in pieces and left in its wake a blue armored elite wielding an energy sword. Its body plate had two deep gashes in it and was covered with flood guts and blood, but its eyes glowed with the power of a holy angels smiting a legion of demons.

The elite and human boarding party shouted their war cries and opened fire on the flood. Oja Ferrunee saw the incoming force of allies and saw the tide of the battle turning. He clenched his mandibles together and hued another combat form into thirds with an intricate motion of the sword. The massing body of flood forms to his left quickly disappeared under the power of Nuyac's well aimed fuel rod cannon. With the incoming fire of plasma and battle rifles, and of some weapon he didn't recognize, the once standing fifty combat forms were quickly destroyed.

Oja Ferrunee and Nuyac walked over to the Arbiter along with his newly acquired teammates.

"Arbiter, it's an honor and a relief to see you!" Oja graciously said.

The Arbiter glanced at the battle weary soldiers. "You fought well against the parasite."

Half-Jaw approached Oja and demanded, "What are you doing with a plasma sword? You do realize you're not allowed to wield such a weapon? Explain yourself."

Oja retold his story. His patrol, encounter with the floor, retrieval of the weapons, the battle in the medical wing, the conflict in the bridge, and finished up commenting the brave actions of Nuyac.

Half-Jaw nodded to the Arbiter. Nuyac was too busy scratching in a hard to reach spot by his external gas tank to notice the impressed looks by the soldiers directed to Oja and himself.

As the soldiers began to relax, Cortana's voice rang out again. "I'm picking up hundreds of contacts closing in on this position. I .." she paused for a millisecond. "I don't know where they're all coming from, but there are almost more than I can count. You need to get out of here! I'm making a copy of myself to oversee the overloading of the reactor similar to what I did on the _Unyielding Hierophant_. You can extract me from the gravity lift."

A mass of red began to fill John's HUD and he, too, realized the severity of the situation. They were going to be overrun and quickly.

The Arbiter realized what was happening and he acted as well. "Come, back to the gravity lift!"

Johnson shouted to his marines, "You heard the elite. Move like your lives depend on it!"

Cortana's voice sounded over the Spartan's speakers, "Copy made, engine core overload in five minutes!"

They all turned and sprinted back the way they came. As the door closed behind them, the bridge instantly filled with a swarm of combat, infection, and carrier forms. They poured from the doorways and raced to catch their fleeing pray.

John hung back to make sure that the slower moving marines and grunts made it to the gravity lift safely. The elites were quicker and waited by the lift with weapons ready as the marines and grunts filtered in. Nuyac, the last in line, exited the door and hopped into the gravity lift with the rest of the team. John lagged behind and grabbed the computer chip out of the computer terminal. He slammed it back into his helmet and instantly felt the cold, watery, feel of Cortana surge back into his mind.

"Chief, lets go! We need to leave!" Cortana shouted.

As John turned to exit, several bursts of plasma fire slammed into his weaker back shielding. He lurched forward and his HUD blared imminent warnings. He backed against the wall and then turned back to face the threat. An incoming wave of combat forms rushed towards him, but intermingled were several bulky carrier forms. John aimed at them and fired two shots of powerful yellow energy.

The shots hammered into the carrier forms causing them to all explode at once. The resulting explosion easily wiped out a line of flood forms ten meters long. This bought him the time he needed. Stepping away from the door, he fired his weapon into the computer terminal. The security fail-safes came into action and the door locked shut. It would be enough to hold the flood forms at bay until the reactors overloaded.

The Spartan leapt onto the gravity lift. As they were all transported to the ground, the Arbiter shouted to him, "The gravity lift will deactivate when we reach the ground. I trust you have an option for extraction."

Answering for the Chief, Cortana spoke out, "That we do. Commander Keyes has a dozen pelicans on the ground with many more on the way. We'll be able to leave and leave quickly before this thing blows."

The answer was good enough for the Arbiter and he nodded in satisfaction. As they touched down, the purple glow of the gravity lift vanished back towards the belly of the ship. The guarding party of elites were waiting for them as they landed.

The Arbiter shouted out to them, "The ship is set to detonate. Move out and load up on the human dropships now!"

They all obeyed and rushed aboard the twelve pelicans on the ground. With the whole group of soldiers loaded, they pelicans fired their engines and blasted off. John watched from one of the pelicans with Sergeant Johnson, the Arbiter, and Half-Jaw as a flash of light overtook the Covenant ship. A roar of fire and light erupted from the small sun as the powerful engines aboard the _Faithful Blessing_ imploded destroying the ship, but also every flood form aboard.

It was tragic to lose the ship, but John felt satisfied that the mission was accomplished and that Earth was once again safe.

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**Authors Notes**: Sorry again about the delay in this entry. Finals kicked my butt to say the least but I've spent the time off to read the three books and to write this chapter. I edited this once and will edit it a few more times later tonight to work out the bugs. Construction of chapter nine will begin shortly and I hope to get it posted as soon as I can. Thank you for being patient and thanks for reading. I hope you all enjoy! Oh, and Happy New Years!


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